Hydrodynamics of distillation tray column with structured catalyst containing envelopes: experiments versus CFD simulations

Abstract

We report studies on the hydrodynamics of a distillation sieve tray column in which structured catalyst containing wire-gauze envelopes are dispersed along the liquid flow direction. The gas and liquid phases are in cross-current contact on the tray and were studied using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). Experiments were carried out to determine the clear liquid height on a rectangular tray as a function of geometry and operating conditions. The agreement between the experiments and CFD simulations was found to be very good, suggesting that CFD simulations can be used for design and scale-up purposes.