Effect of channel opening angle on the performance of structured packings

Structured packings are efficient gas–liquid contacting devices and have been widely used in many industrial applications for decades. Unfortunately the channel opening angle, an important geometrical parameter of structured packing, has received only little attention until now. In this work, the effect of channel opening angle on the performance of the column containing structured packing was investigated both numerically and experimentally. The simulation results show that the pressure drop can decrease substantially and the liquid maldistribution can be effectively reduced when the channel opening angle decreases from 90° to 20°. The simulation is in quite good agreement with the experiments. In addition, a new modified structured packing was validated according to total reflux distillation experiment. It was shown that the pressure drop of the new packing could reduce by 35% and mass transfer efficiency could increase by 13% compared to the Mellapak packing having the same specific surface area.