Experimental study of liquid spreading in structured packings

Abstract

Optimization of industrial gas-liquid columns dedicated to CO2 capture requires prediction of liquid distribution within packed beds. In this context, liquid hold-up as well as liquid spreading from a source point have been investigated for Mellapak 250.X structured packing. Local liquid hold-up measurements have been achieved in a 400 mm diameter column by means of gamma-ray tomography with operation in the counter-current mode at different positions downstream the source point injection. Liquid hold-up and retention map measurements have been performed for two fluid systems: Air / Water and Air / MEA 30wt.%. A correlation that relates global liquid hold-up and liquid load taking into account liquid viscosity is proposed. This correlation has been further used to determine spread factors using a simple dispersion model for all investigated operational conditions. Liquid dispersion model is found to well reproduce experimental data in the range of operational conditions that were tested which enables to determine spread factors for various operating conditions. The spread factor is observed not to vary with liquid load, gas capacity factor in the range of 20% to 80% of flooding nor liquid viscosity. This led us to stipulate that liquid dispersion is controlled by packing geometry only. Nevertheless, the effect of surface tension on liquid hold-up and dispersion is discussed since its effect is not fully understood and calls for further experiments if one wants to apply those results for hydrocarbons.