Liquid Film Characteristics on Surface of Structured Packing

Structured packing is a good candidate for CO2 capture process because of its higher mass transfer efficiency and lower pressure drop. Now, the challenging problem of CO2 capture and storage demands more and more efficiency equipment. The aim of the present study is to investigate the liquid film characteristics under counter current gas phase and throw some insight into the enhancing mechanism of mass transfer performance in structured packing. A high speed digital camera, non-intrusive measurement technique, was used. Water and air were working fluids. Experiments were carried out for different gas/liquid flow rates and different inclination angles. The time-average and instantaneous film widths for each set of flow parameters were calculated. It is shown that the effects of gas phase could be neglected for lower flow rate, and then, become more pronounced at higher flow rate. According to instantaneous film width, three different stages can be distinguished. One is the constant width of liquid film. The second is the slight decrease of film width and the smooth surface. This kind of character will lead to less interfacial area and deteriorate the packing mass transfer performance. For the third stage, the variation of film width shows clearly chaotic behavior. The prediction model was also developed in present work. The predicted and experimental results are in good agreement.

Experimental Investigation of Single-phase Flow in Structured Packing by LDV

To date, many models have been developed to calculate the flow field in the structured packing by the computational fluid dynamics （CFD） technique, but little experimental work has been carried out to serve the vali-dation of flow simulation. In this work, the velocity profiles of single-phase flow in structured packing are measured at the Reynolds numbers of 20.0, 55.7 and 520.1, using the laser Doppler velocimetry （LDV）. The time-averaged and instantaneous velocities of three components are obtained simultaneously. The CFD simulation is also carried out to numerically predict the velocity distribution within the structured packing. Comparison shows that the flow pattern, velocity distribution and turbulent kinetic energy （for turbulent flow） on the horizontal plane predicted by CFD simulation are in good agreement with the LDV measured data. The values of the x-and z-velocity components are quantitatively well predicted over the plane in the center of the packing, but the predicted y-component is sig-nificantly smaller than the experimental data. It can be concluded that experimental measurement is important for further improvement of CFD model.

Three-dimensional Computational Fluid Dynamics Modeling of Two-phase Flow in a Structured Packing Column

Characterizing the complex two-phase hydrodynamics in structured packed columns requires a power- ful modeling tool. The traditional two-dimensional model exhibits limitations when one attempts to model the de- tailed two-phase flow inside the columns. The present paper presents a three-dimensional computational fluid dy- namics （CFD） model to simulate the two-phase flow in a representative unit of the column. The unit consists of an CFD calculations on column packed with Flexipak 1Y were implemented within the volume of fluid （VOF） mathe- matical framework. The CFD model was validated by comparing the calculated thickness of liquid film with the available experimental data. Special attention was given to quantitative analysis of the effects of gravity on the hy- drodynamics. Fluctuations in the liquid mass flow rate and the calculated pressure drop loss were found to be quali- tatively in agreement with the experimental observations.

CFD Simulation of Flow and Mass Transfer in Structured Packing Distillation Columns

Detailed investigation of flow behavior in structured packing distillation columns is of great importance in accurate prediction of process efficiency and development of more efficient and optimal equipment internals. In this study, a three-dimensional two-phase flow model based on VOF method for simulating the hydrodynamics and mass-transfer behavior in a typical representative unit of the structured packing is developed. In the proposed model, the c 2 - ε c model is used for the closure of turbulent mass transfer equation. By solving the proposed model, the velocity distribution, phase fraction profile and concentration field are obtained. Using these data, the total liquid holdup, the wetted area and the separation efficiency [height equivalent to a theoretical plate (HETP)] are estimated. For testing the model validation, the simulated HETPs are compared with our previous experimental data obtained in a 150 mm-diameter column containing Mellapak 350Y operating at the pressures of 0.6-1.8 MPa. The compari-son shows that they are in satisfactory agreement, with an average absolute deviation (AAD) of 25.4%.

NOx Absorption in Full Scale Plant Columns with Structured Packings

A mathematical model of nitrogen oxide （NOx） absorption is adopted and solved for adiabatic operation of a column with structured packings on the basis of the film theory. Removal rate, outlet concentration, oxidation degree of NOx and outlet acid concentration, liquid acid temperature are simulated and tested. The gas phase reactions and equilibria, gas phase mass transfer, interracial equilibria, and liquid phase reactions are considered in the model. Absorption of nitrogen oxides is studied in packed with Mellapak 250Y columns in series in an industrial process of 20000 t oxalic acid per year. Favorable agreement is shown between the model predictions and the on-site observations.

Comparison of Gas Distribution Properties of Conventional and High Capacity Structured Packings

This paper presents the results of an experimental study carried out using large scale equipment to observe the effect of geometry on gas distribution properties of a high capacity corrugated sheet structured packing （Montz-pak B 1-250M） and to compare it with that of its conventional counterpart （Montz-pak B1-250）. Although the high capacity packing exhibits a significantly lower overall pressure drop, the gas distribution performance is similar to that of the conventional packing, and in both cases consistently good one.

Liquid-solid mass transfer in a rotating packed bed reactor with structured foam packing

A rotating packed bed(RPB) reactor has substantially potential for the process intensification of heterogeneous catalytic reactions. However, the scarce knowledge of the liquid–solid mass transfer in the RPB reactor is a barrier for its design and scale-up. In this work, the liquid–solid mass transfer in a RPB reactor installed with structured foam packing was experimentally studied using copper dissolution by potassium dichromate. Effects of rotational speed, liquid and gas volumetric flow rate on the liquid–solid mass transfer coefficient(kLS) have been investigated. The correlation for predicting kLSwas proposed, and the deviation between the experimental and predicted values was within±12%. The liquid–solid volumetric mass transfer coefficient(kLSaLS) ranged from 0.04–0.14 1^-1, which was approximately 5 times larger than that in the packed bed reactor. This work lays the foundation for modeling of the RPB reactor packed with structured foam packing for heterogeneous catalytic reaction.

Mass transfer performance of structured packings in a CO_2 absorption tower

This paper studies the mass transfer performance of structured packings in the absorption of CO2 from air with aqueous Na OH solution. The Eight structured packings tested are sheet metal ones with corrugations of different geometry parameters. Effective mass transfer area and overall gas phase mass transfer coefficient have been measured in an absorption column of 200 mm diameter under the conditions of gas F-factor in 0.38–1.52 Pa0.5and aqueous Na OH solution concentration of 0.10–0.15 kmol·m-3. The effects of gas/liquid phase flow rates and packing geometry parameters are also investigated. The results show that the effective mass transfer area changes not only with packing geometry parameters and liquid load, but also with gas F-factor. A new effective mass transfer area correlation on the gas F-factor and the liquid load was proposed, which is found to fit experiment data very well.

Fast synchrotron X-ray tomography study of the packing structures of rods with different aspect ratios

We present a fast synchrotron X-ray tomography study of the packing structures of rods with different aspect ratios. Utilizing the high flux of the X-rays generated from the third-generation synchrotron source, we can complete a high- resolution tomography scan within a short period of time, after which the three-dimensional （3D） packing structure can be obtained for the subsequent structural analysis. The image phase-retrieval procedure has been implemented to enhance the image contrast. We systematically investigated the effects of particle shape and aspect ratio on the structural properties including packing density and contact number. It turns out that large aspect ratio rod packings will have wider distributions of free volume fraction and larger mean contact numbers.

Performance Prediction of Structured Packing Column for Cryogenic Air Separation with Hybrid Model

A detailed investigation of a thermodynamic process in a structured packing distillation column is of great impor- tance in prediction of process efficiency. In order to keep the simplicity of an equilibrium stage model and the accu- racy of a non-equilibrium stage model, a hybrid model is developed to predict the structured packing column in cryogenic air separation. A general solution process for the equilibrium stage model is developed to solve the set of equations of the hybrid model, in which a separation efficiency function is introduced to obtain the resulting tri-diagonal matrix and its solution by the Thomas algorithm. As an example, the algorithm is applied to analyze an upper column of a cryogenic air separation plant with the capacity of 17000 m3·h-1. Rigorous simulations are conducted using Aspen RATEFRAC module to validate the approach. The temperature and composition distributions are in a good agreement with the two methods. The effects of inlet/outlet position and flow rate on the temperature and composition distributions in the column are analyzed. The results demonstrate that the hybrid model and the solution algorithms are effective in analvzin~ the distillation process for a a cryogenic structured packing column.

An Experimental Study of Structured Packing in High Pressure Services

Both distillation performance and hydrodynamic study for backmixing by tracer technique were carried out in a high-pressure packed column with 0.15 m inner diameter over a wide range of operating conditions. Isobutane and n-pentane are employed as test mixture in the distillation experiment and air/water is used for the hydrodynamic study. The column is installed with Mellapak 350Y structured packing and the total packing height is 2.0 m. With the increasing operating pressure, the separation efficiency increases slightly while the F-factor corresponding to the maximum efficiency at each pressure is descending. It is noted that, at all operating pressures, with the increase of F-factor, the packing efficiency is slightly higher up to the flooding point. The application of SRP model to high-pressure distillation gives much lower values of HTUOG than those obtained experimentally. An additional term, the height of mixing unit, is introduced to correct the SRP model and improve its accuracy at high pressure. From the tracer experiments, the height of mixing unit for gas phase was found to be larger than that for the liquid phase. From this viewpoint, it is believed that the gas phase backmixing gives more unfavorable influence on the separation efficiency in comparison with liquid phase.

Performance of Structured Packing in High Pressure Distillation

Performance of Mellapak 250Y and 350Y corrugated structured packing in distillation applications at pressures ranging from 0.3 to 2.0MPa is analysed by using HTU-NTU method. These data are obtained in a distillation column with 0.15 m diameter op-erated with n-butane/n-pentane system at total reflux. In considering the axial backmixing effects, the height of an overall gas phase transfer unit, HTUOG , is divided into two parts. One part represents the height of an overall gas phase transfer unit, without backmixing, designated as*OGHTU, and the other part, designated as the height of a backmixing unit (HBUO), accounts for the backmixing effects. The HTUOG is evaluated from the measured concentration profile of n-butane in liquid phase. The HBUO obtained experimentally is correlated in terms of the properties of the materials being separated and the equivalent diameter of the structured packing. Our result shows that HBUO varies from 0.12 to 0.34 m as pressure increases from 1.0 to 1.9 MPa. It indicates that the overall efficiency of the structured packing decreases gradually at high pressure, as a result of the vapor backmixing.

Gas-Liquid Two-Phase Axial Backmixing Through Structured Packing at Elevated Pressure

An experimental study of the extent of axial backmixing in both gas and liquid phases was conducted in a 150 mm ID column packed with Mellapak 250Y corrugated structured packing. The column was operated at pressures ranging from 0.3 MPa to 2.0MPa with nitrogen and water flowing countercurrently through the packing. The amount of axial backmixing was experimentally evaluated by the pulse response techniques using hydrogen in gas phase and an aqueous solution of NaCl in liquid phase as inert tracers. The response of the tracer was monitored by means of thermal conductivity in the gas phase and electrical conductance in the liquid phase. The experimentally determined residence time distribution (RTD) curves were interpreted in terms of the diffusion-type modei. The results indicated that the axial backmixing in the gas increased notably with gas flowrate and slightly with operating pressure and liquid flowrate. The liquid-phase axial backmixing was an increasing function of both gas and liquid flowrates and insensitive to pressure. Various correlations were developed for reproducing the experimental mixing data. The agreement between experimental and correlated data appeared to be acceptable and within ±20% of difference.

Pressure drop of structured packing in pilot column and comparison to common correlations

Packed columns are widely used in the chemical industry such as absorption,stripping,distillation,and extraction in the production of e.g.organic chemicals,and pharmaceuticals.Pressure loss and pressure drop correlations are of special interest when it comes to the hydrodynamic properties of a column.The pressure loss across the column is of interest in the design phase when the size of the blower to drive the gas stream through the column has to be decided.The loading point and flooding point are also influenced by the pressure loss and the area of operation is determined from these points.This work examines four different correlations on pressure drop.The correlations are(i)Ergun’s equation(1952),(ii)an improved version of Ergun’s equation by Stichlmair,Bravo,and Fair(1989),(iii)an equation developed by Billet and Schultes(1999),and(iv)an equation by Rocha,Bravo,and Fair(1993).The complexity of the correlations is increasing in the mentioned order,Ergun’s equation being the simplest one.This study investigates if the more complicated correlations give better predictions to pressure drop in packed columns.This is determined by comparing the correlations to experimental data for pressure drop in a packed column with 8.2 m of structured packing using water as the liquid and atmospheric air as the gas.Seven experiments were carried out for determining the pressure drop in the column with liquid flows varying from 0 to 500 kg·h^(-1).At constant liquid flow,the gas flow was varied from approximately 10 to 70 kg·h^(-1).The pressure drop across the non-wetted column was best described by the correlation by Rocha et al.while the pressure drop for liquid flows from 100 to 500 kg·h^(-1)was,in general,best described by Stichlmair’s equation.For an irrigated column,the highest deviation was a predicted pressure drop 69.6%lower than measured.The best prediction was 0.1%higher than the measured.This study shows,surprisingly,that for a system of water and atmospheric air,complicated correlations on pressure drop determination do not provide better estimates than simple equations.

Packing Structures of Thiophene Dimers and Their Effects on Excitation Energies of Thiophene Dimers

The packing structures of thiophene dimers and their effects on excitation energies of thiophene dimers were studied by employing MP2/6-31 ＋ G^＊ and TDDFT calculations. Twelve Optimized dimers with different orientations were obtained by means of MP2/6-31 ＋ G ^＊ optimizations. Among them, five T-shaped and three π-stacked thiophene dimers are local minima in energy. The result shows that the preferable conformation of thiophene dimers is the T- shaped packing, which is in agreement with the results in references. All the excitation energies of both T-shaped dimers（5. 34-5. 48 eV） and π-stacked dimers（5. 15-5. 18 eV） are lower than that of the isolated thiophene（5.68 eV）, indicating that inter-ring interactions decrease the excitation energies.

Influence of particle packing structure on sound velocity

The anisotropy in the particle systems of different packing structures affects the sound velocity. The acoustic propagation process in four kinds of packing structures（denoted as S45, H60, S90, and D） of two-dimensional granular system is simulated by the discrete element method. The velocity vtof obtained by the time of flight method and the velocity vc obtained from the stiffness tensor of the system are compared. Different sound velocities reflect various packing structures and force distributions within the system. The compression wave velocities of H60 and S90 are nearly the same, and transmit faster than that of D packing structure, while the sound velocity of S45 is the smallest. The shear wave velocities of S45 and H60 are nearly the same, and transmit faster than that of D packing structure. The compression wave velocity is sensitive to the volume fraction of the structure, however, the shear wave velocity is more sensitive to the geometrical structure itself. As the normal stress p is larger than 1 MPa, vtof and vc are almost equal, and the stiffness tensors of various structures explain the difference of sound velocities. When the normal stress is less than 1 MPa, with the coordination number unchanged, the law vtof ∝ p^1/4 still exists. This demonstrates that apart from different power laws between force and deformation as well as the change of the coordination number under different stresses, there are other complicated causes of vtof∝ p^1/4, and an explanation of the deviation from vtof ∝ p^1/6 is given from the perspective of dissipation.

Comparison of Structured Packings in CO2 Absorber with Chemical Reactions

The objective of this work is to study a comprehensive performance of three types of structured parking in CO2 absorption application. One of them was developed in Mexican National Institute of Nuclear Research （ININ abbreviation in Spanish of Instituto Nacional de lnvestigaciones Nucleates）, and the other two, Sulzer BX and Mellapak 250Y, by Sulzer Brothers Ltd. Aqueous solution of 30 weight % Monoethanolamine was employed as absorption solvent. The performance of the structured packing was evaluated in terms of the pressure drop, holds up, volumetric overall mass transfer coefficient and height of a global transfer unit of gas and liquid side as a function of the process operating parameters including gas and liquid load, by using hydrodynamic and mass transfer models. The pressure drop of ININ packing was higher than Sulzer BX and Mellapak 250Y, and volumetric overall mass transfer coefficient values are similar of Sulzer BX values and higher than Mellapak 250Y, although Sulzer BX and ININI 8 packing had less height of a global transfer unit of gas side values than Mellapak 250Y packing. The above-mentioned are consequences of the geometric characteristics and operational behavior for each packing.

A STUDY OF PACKING STRUCTURE OF POLY(P-PHENYLENE BENZOBISTHIAZOLE)BY MOLECULAR SIMULATION

Molecular simulation technique was used in an examination of the possibilities of chain packing in the crystalline state for poly(ρ-phenylene benzobisthiazole).It has been found that one reason of hardly forming very ordered crystal of the polymer is the existence of so many stable positions of interchain interaction along chain axis.

Synthesis and Crystal Structure of a New Cu(Ⅱ) Dithiocarbamate Complex CuI(prdtc)(phen)

A new mononuclear Cu（Ⅱ） dithiocarbamate complex CuI（prdtc）（phen） 1 （prdtc = N-pyrrolidinyldithiocarbamate, phen = 1,10-phenanthroline） was synthesized and characterized by elemental analysis, IR spectrum, and single-crystal X-ray diffraction. The crystal belongs to the monoclinic system, space group P21/c with a = 8.7110（9）, b = 14.7143（14）, c = 14.8507（15） A, β = 109.721（6）°, V = 1791.9（3） A3, Z = 4, Dc = 1.916 g/cm3, CI7H16CulN3S2, Mr = 516.89, λ（MoKa） = 0.71073A,μ = 3.178 mm^-1, F（000） = 1012, the final R = 0.0369 and wR = 0.0987. A total of 4082 unique reflections were collected, of which 2916 with I 〉 2σ（I） were observed. The Cu（Ⅱ） atom is five-coordinated in a distorted square-pyramidal geometry by one I atom in the apical position, two S atoms from a prdtc ligand and two N atoms from a phen ligand in the basal plane. There exist face-to-face aromatic π-π stacking interactions between adjacent phen ligands stabilizing the structure and making the complex assemble into a 1D structure along the a axis. It can be concluded that the difference of the dtc flexibility and reaction conditions result in the structural difference between complex 1 and CuI（dmdtc）（phen） （dmdtc = N, N-dimethyldithiocarbamate）.

Reliability study of super-ellipsoid DEM in representing the packing structure of blast furnace

In industrial blast furnaces(BFs),the investigations involving the flow behaviors of particles and the resultant burden structure are essential to optimize its operation stability and energy consumption.With the advance of computing capability and mathematical model,the discrete element method(DEM)specialized in characterizing particle behavior has manifested its power in the investigation of BFs.In the framework of DEM,many particle models have been developed,but which model is more suitable for simulating the particle behaviors of BFs remains a question because real particles in BFs have large shape and size dispersity.Among these particle models,the super-ellipsoid model possesses the ability to change shape flexibly.Therefore,the focus of this study is to investigate whether the super-ellipsoid model can meet the requirement of authenticity and accuracy in simulating the behaviors of particles with large shape and size dispersity.To answer this question,a simplified BF charging system composed of a hopper and a storage bin is established.The charging process and the final packing structure are analyzed and compared between experiments and simulations with different shape indexes.The results show that super-ellipsoid particles have prominent advantages over spherical particles in terms of representing the real BF particles,and it can more reasonably reproduce the flow behaviors and packing structure of experimental particles.The computation cost of super-ellipsoid particles is also acceptable for engineering applications.Finally,the micro-scale characteristics of packing structure is analyzed and the single-ring charging process in industry-scale BF using super-ellipsoid particles is conducted.