Experimental studies of liquid flow maldistribution in a random packed column

F. Yin, Z. Wang, A. Afacan, K. Nandakumar*, K. T. Chuang

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

45 Scopus citations

Abstract

Liquid flow distribution has been a major concern when scaling up random packed columns. This study concerns the measurements of liquid flow distribution in a large scale column packed with 25.4 mm stainless steel Pall rings. The liquid flow distribution was studied with packed bed height from 0.9 to 3.5 m, liquid flow rate from 2.91 to 6.66 kg/m2·s, and gas flow rate from 0 to 3.0 kg/m2·s. In addition, three systems, water/air, aqueous detergent solution/air and Isopar/air, were used to study the effect of liquid physical properties on liquid flow distribution, and two different liquid distributors were employed to test the effect of liquid distributor design. It was found that liquid flow distribution was strongly influenced by liquid distributor design, packed bed height, gas flow rate and liquid viscosity, slightly influenced by liquid flow rate, but not by liquid surface tension.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)449-457
Number of pages9
JournalCanadian Journal of Chemical Engineering
Volume78
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 2000
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Liquid flow distribution
  • Liquid wall flow
  • Packed column
  • Random packings

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