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Equipment for Gas-Liquid

Separation

Gas-dispersed liquid continuous type

To be used for liquid-film controlling mass transfer operation
Mostly, these type of equipment is used when the solute contained in
the gas phase is sparingly soluble in the liquid phase.
Very common for distillation operation.
Examples of such equipment:
Agitated vessel
Sparged vessel
Tray tower

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Marine impeller

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Disk flat-blade turbine

In full vessel, without gas liquid interface and

without baffles

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Tray tower

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Tray efficiency will be high if,

Liquid depth is high, and/or
Gas velocity is high

Difficulty in achieving high tray efficiency:

Entrainment At high gas velocity
High pressure drop (great liquid depth and high gas velocity)
Leads to high operating cost in absorber & humidification
High pressure in the reboiler leads to high boiling temperature, may lead to degradation
of feed, or result in heating difficulty.
For liquid gas combination, which have tendency to foam excessively, may result in
priming (excessive entrainment)

Other undesirable phenomena

Coning:
L low, moderate G

Weeping:
G low, moderate L

Dumping:
G low, L low

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Operating zone of tray tower

For the type of tray at flooding,
the superficial gas velocity

is given by
=

Where,
= area
occupied by downspout

Types of tray
Sieve tray
Bubble cap tray
Valve tray

Bubble cap tray

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Different types of tray

Sieve Tray
Tunnel Cap Tray

Valve Tray

Bubble Cap Tray

Structured Packing Tray

Flow configuration
over trays

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Liquid dispersed gas continuous

To be used for gas-film controlling mass transfer operation
Mostly, these type of equipment is used when the solute contained in
the gas phase is highly soluble in the liquid phase.
Very common for absorption operation.
Examples of such equipment:

Venturi scrubber
Wetted wall tower
Spray tower
Packed column

Venturi scrubber

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Packed tower
Some salient features of packed tower:

Low weight per unit volume

Large active surface area/ unit volume
Large free cross section
Large free volume
Small liquid hold-up

Above points are also desirable characteristics of

tower packing

Random packing

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Regular packing

Packing support

Typical packing support

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Liquid distributor

(a) Inadequate, (b) Adequate

Counter-current flow of liquid and gas

through packing
Below point A, liquid hold-up is
constant with changing gas velocities
Between A and B, liquid hold-up
increases with increase in G, free
area decreases, P increases rapidly
At B (flooding):
A layer of liquid through which gas
bubbles may appear at the top of the
packing
Liquid may fill the tower - inversion

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Flooding and pressure drop in random packed

tower

Pressure drop per unit length, P/z

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