An Approach to the Estimation of the Packing Efficiency by Considering Gas and Uquid Axial Mixings

To evaluate the influence of gas and liquid axial mixings on the separation efficiency of packed column, an approximate mathematical solution of HETP (equivalent height to a theoretical plate) under continuous operation has been proposed based on the mixing pool model. The mass transfer and hydrodynamic data of structured packing, Mellapak 350Y, obtained in a high pressure tower have been used to test the validity of the proposed model. Compared with the SRP model and the Gualito model, it is found that for high pressure distillation process the present mathematical prediction shows a mean relative error of about 10% to the experimental data,the accuracy of which is the same as that by the Gualito model but better than that by the SRP model.