Design and hydrodynamics evaluation of a packed minicolumn

Abstract

A packed column of height 1 970 mm, packing height 1200 mm and diameter 75 mm was designed. The packingwere placed at random, it is of raschig rings, ceramic and diameter 16  mm.  For the selection of  the packing and to fabricate the internal constituents, recommendations of the literature were considered, and the dimensions were compared with similar  installations. The hydrodynamics in a counter-current gas-liquid  flow was experimentally investigated and the operation capacity  was obtained: flow of liquid up to 10 L/min. and gas, 50 L/min.  The load loss was adjusted inpreloading regimen and humidpacking to the equation of leva and the inundation curve, accordingto Eckert and Lobo correlations. The load loss in the columns was similar to the one reported in the literature, although the slope change among the preloading regimen andloads it was not abrupt, but rather it was reached it in a gradual way.