Investigation of Falling Liquid Film Flow on Novel Structured Packing

Structured packings are widely used in many separation processes. In this paper, the liquid film flow behavior as well as mass transfer efficiency on the novel and the traditional structured packings is investigated after being simplified into multibaffled and inclined plate, respectively. The novel structured packing has a number of openings punched through the ridges on the inner and outer sides of the packing surface, and this structure corresponds to a certain flow pattern that influences mass transfer processes other than the traditional ones. The CFD method and VOF model are applied to investigate the vapor-liquid two-phase flow behavior and mass transfer process. Isopropanol desorption on the two kinds of plates is studied experimentally and numerically, and the experimental and simulation results are in good agreement. A significantly higher mass transfer efficiency of the multibaffled plate is observed, and the simulation results indicate successfully that the higher mass transfer efficiency on the novel structured packing results from the increased renewal rate and disturbance of liquid film flow.