Prospectus

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OR-2 Improving Quality of FRI Test Data Reboiler De-Entrainment (Part 2) Expected Benefit toMembers: Improper design of auxiliary devices such as collectors, reboiler inlets, and vapor distributors can compromise the performance and/or limit the capacity of an otherwise well-designed distillation column. Ensuring that the auxiliary devices are not affecting the test results of the packing or trays being tested will provide improved confidence in the overall test results. Present Situation and Proposed Research: It has been reported that both large-scale and small-scale entrainment exist in many tests performed with both random and structured packing. Various devices and configurations have been used in an attempt to prevent entrainment of liquid from the reboiler and/or provide a means to obtain a reliable liquid sample below a packed bed, while none have been thoroughly tested for their effectiveness. The various collectors and de-entrainment devices that have been used over the years have been designs by FRI as well as various packing vendors. In addition to various types and designs of devices, the position of the devices in relation to the reboiler vapor inlet and to the bottom of the packed bed have been widely varied. In prospectus item “Improving Quality of FRI Test Data (Part 1), the objective is to quantitatively measure the amount of entrainment from the reboiler and determine whether the entrainment is enough to affect the results or conclusions made for prior or future test work. In Part 2, the capacity and effectiveness of the various collectors/de-entrainment devices are to be measured. Through quantitative testing of the collectors, it will help establish whether the collector/de- entrainment device is actually helping to overcome entrainment from the reboiler, or if the device itself is actually causing additional entrainment. If the collector/de-entrainment device generates additional entrainment, it could lead to erroneous efficiency and/or flooding conclusions. The quantitative determination of the capacity of various collectors and de-entrainment devices is needed to ensure the conclusions reached for packing tests neither penalize nor exaggerate the device performance due to auxiliary equipment. When extracting data for use in correlations or when test results are used for comparison of different packings, it is important to know if the column auxiliaries may have affected the results. Proposed Internals and Test System: Various configurations of chimney tray, high rise bubble cap and vane collectors as well as de entrainment beds of structured packing or grid have been used without a thorough understanding their effect on the results and conclusions reached for packing performance. It is understood that the capacity of the large crimp structured packings is high and the tests can be affected by capacity limiting auxiliaries. The limits of these auxiliary devices often become obvious based on separation performance and/or video observations. Traditional Research Idea

PROSPECTUS

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