Replacing a corroded column with

packing internals
A corroded column was replaced with a new column equipped with high
capacity packing. The cross sectional area is less than half that of the original

Yang Quan, Markus Duss and Dong Jiao-Jiao Sulzer Chemtech

A
direct contact after
Cooled air Main specifications of the new
cooler (DCAC) col- DCAC column
umn equipped with

sieve trays in an air separation New column Old column

Height (T/T), m 14 14
unit (ASU) was severely cor- Inner diameter, m 2.7 4.0
Chilled water
roded and had to be replaced. Packing type MellapakPlus Sieve tray
252.Y
Rather than go for a one to one
replacement, a modern pack- Table 1
ing solution was selected based
on a lower pressure drop and laden with water in preference to
much higher capacity. During CO2. If CO2 is not removed from
Cooling water
the process design stage, the compressed air, it can preferen-
packing height specified was tially freeze and cause plugging of
confirmed to be adequate to downstream equipment. A simple
meet the heat transfer require- sketch of a DCAC column is shown
Hot air
ment. During the detailed in Figure 1.
engineering phase, computa- An operator in the Asia Pacific
tional fluid dynamics (CFD) region approached Sulzer to
Water
simulations were utilised to replace a severely corroded DCAC
assess the acceptability of the column. The existing column was
existing inlet arrangement. Figure 1 Sketch of a DCAC column 4 m in diameter and 14 m T/T, and
Trial runs were conducted was equipped with 10 sieve trays.
shortly after the new column was erected. The The dimensions of the new column were specified
measured temperature of the air from the top of as in Table 1.
the new DCAC column matched the design value Besides, a detailed design of the air inlet was
very well. provided in the specification sheet: an open pipe
type with a disk beneath the downward opening
Background to direct the incoming vapour upwards.
In an ASU, compressed air is brought into con- The proposed operating conditions and process
tact with chilled and cooling water in the DCAC. flows for the new column were unchanged. Based
The primary function of the DCAC column is on the stream data and packing type, the capacity
to cool the hot air and reduce moisture.1 As and the pressure drop were evaluated, with the
the water vapour content in compressed air is results listed in Table 2. It can be seen from the
linked directly to temperature, the compressed packing hydraulics that the new column was not
air must be cooled to 8°C~15°C. Otherwise, the highly loaded.
downstream molecular sieve adsorbers may be The key function of the DCAC column is to

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 Packing hydraulics Operating conditions of the tray
column (the critical case)

Upper section Lower section Column top pressure, bar_a 7.03

Top Bottom Top Bottom Hot air temperature,°C 95
Capacity, % 51.0 51.9 65.3 71.5 Chilled water temperature, °C 14
∆P, mbar/m 1.2 1.2 1.4 1.7 Cooling water temperature, °C 28

Table 2 Table 3

achieve the required temperature specification of Process simulations provide useful insights,
the cooled air stream. A temperature outside this such as the driving force for respective heat
range will negatively impact the vital downstream transfers as well as the thermal properties of the
molecular sieve adsorbers’ ability to condition the two phases. However, they can not predict how
incoming air stream. Table 3 summarises the top fast heat will be transferred over a specific type of
pressure of the DCAC column and the tempera- packing.
tures of various feeds. Based on past operation of Specifically, for sensible heat transfer, the heat
the old column, the best ever achieved tempera- transfer coefficient in the gas phase should be
ture of cooled air from the top of the DCAC was known. This, apart from the thermal properties
15.5°C. Sulzer was asked to evaluate the specifi- of the gas, is also related to gas turbulence inside
cations and guarantee an approach temperature the packing. Subsequently, the required packing
(the temperature difference between the cooled area2 can be calculated as follows:
air and the chilled water) of less than 1.5 °C. 𝑄𝑄!
To guarantee the temperature of the cooled air, 𝐴𝐴!
=
𝑈𝑈×(𝑇𝑇! − 𝑇𝑇! )
(1)
heat transfer calculations must be carried out to
evaluate the process risks. where QS (W) is sensible heat, U (W · m-2 · K-1) is
gas heat transfer coefficient, and TG and Ti (K) are
Heat transfer calculations temperature of bulk gas and temperature of the
In the DCAC column, as the temperature of the interface respectively.
compressed air is higher than that of the water, As for latent heat, the required packing area3
sensible heat is transferred from the hot air to the can be determined by:
water. Meanwhile, due to condensation of water
𝑄𝑄!
vapour, the latent heat of the hot air is also trans- 𝐴𝐴! = (2)
𝑘𝑘! ×(ℎ! − ℎ! )×𝑀𝑀!"# ×∆𝐻𝐻!"
ferred. It should be highlighted that condensa-
tion is essentially a mass transfer matter. Figure
2 illustrates the concentration where QL (W) is latent heat, kG
and temperature profiles of water (kmol· m-2 · s-1) is mass transfer
in the air and water phases for Interface coefficient, hG and hi (mol · mol-
Air film Liquid
a DCAC column. From this fig- H2O film
1
) are humidity in gas bulk and
ure, it can be easily understood the interface respectively, Mair
H2O concentration
that resistance to sensible heat (g· mol-1) is molecular weight
HG humidity
transfer exists dominantly in the of air and ∆HLV (J/kg) is latent
gas phase while for latent heat TG heat of water.
Hi
transfer or mass transfer there is Similarly, the mass transfer
no resistance in the liquid phase Latent heat
coefficient is also related to gas
Ti TL
due to a nearly zero concentra- in gas turbulence inside the packing.
Sensible heat
tion difference of water between Sensible heat in water Depending on the appli-
the water phase and a water lam- in gas cation and specific customer
inar film. Therefore, for sensible requirements, the packing sur-
heat transfer and latent heat face area can be adapted to fit
transfer in the DCAC column, Figure 2 Concentration and the purposes best. It should
only the gas phase needs to be temperature profiles of water in air be noted that the packing area
looked at closely. and water phases described above refers to the

2 PTQ Q2 2018 www.digitalrefining.com/article/1001495

effective area available for heat
transfer, which may or may not
be the same as the geometri-
cal surface area of the packing.4
Nevertheless, Sulzer’s proprie-
tary packing correlations pre-
dict packing effective area as
well as mass transfer and heat
transfer coefficients at specific
operating conditions.
Based on the specified pack-
ing type and height, and the flow
rates and conditions of feeds,
we calculated the cooled air out-
let temperature to be 14.5°C
with an approach temperature
of 0.5°C. The impact of possi- Figure 3 CFD model of the DCAC column and its external inlet pipes
ble variations in water flow rate
(±10%) was also investigated.
Eventually, Sulzer guaranteed
that 1.5°C of approach tempera-
ture could be achieved.

Inlet piping
For this ASU plant, one of the
two feeds was supplied by a
compressor; the other feed came
from a nearby plant. The feeds
were combined in front of the
DCAC column, and the distance
between the joint of the two
inlet pipes and the DCAC col-
umn was about four times that
of the diameter of the air inlet to
the column. Common practice Figure 4 Vapour flow trajectories in the DCAC column and its external inlet pipes
in industry is that, in order to
avoid maldistribution of vapour Column pressure drop and approach temperature
inside a column, any unavoid-
able upstream piping distur- Old column New column (guaranteed) New column
bance should be at least 10 times (commissioning data)
that of the inlet size in distance ∆P (mbar) 80 14.1 12
∆T (°C) 1.5 (Best) 1.5 0.5
from the column. In the exist-
ing tray design, maldistribu- Table 4
tion of vapour would likely be
mitigated by the high pressure drop of the tray. A CFD study was subsequently carried out to
However, given the much lower pressure drop understand vapour distribution inside the new
for the selected packing, maldistribution became column. Figure 3 shows the CFD model built
a potential issue in the stable operation of the for the DCAC column and its front inlet pipes.
column. While the operator planned to revamp The simulated vapour flow trajectories are illus-
the external inlet piping, Sulzer suggested using trated in Figure 4. It was evident from Figure 4
an advanced inlet device, Shell Schoepentoeter, that vapour distribution was perfectly fine if
instead of the specified simple pipe inlet device. Schoepentoeter was used as the air inlet device.

www.digitalrefining.com/article/1001495 PTQ Q2 2018 3

 3 Geankoplis C J, Transport Process and Separation Process
The operator agreed to leave the external inlet
Principles, 4th Ed., Ch. 9 & 10, Prentice Hall, 2003.
piping untouched.
4 Duss M, Meierhofer H, Nutter D, Effective interfacial area and
liquid hold-up of Nutter rings at high liquid loads, Chemical
Results Engineering and Technology, Vol. 24, 2001.
Shortly after the new DCAC column was erected
on site, commissioning started. The operating Yang Quan is a Sulzer Senior Technical Expert, specialising in
data during commissioning were collected and mass transfer components, such as trays, packing, column
they are listed in Table 4. internals and separators. He is also responsible for air separation
As expected, the pressure drop of the new knowledge management within Sulzer Chemtech. He holds a
packed column was 85% lower than that of the PhD in environmental engineering from the National University of
Singapore.
old tray column, and more importantly it was
Markus Duss is a Sulzer Senior Technical Consultant,
below the guaranteed value. The approach tem-
responsible for the development of in-house tools for designing
perature was consistently at 0.5°C, a degree heat and mass transfer applications for rings and structured
below the guaranteed value and matching very packing. He is also the technical focal point for post combustion
well the calculated figure of 0.5°C. The commis- carbon capture projects. He graduated from the Polytechnical
sioning data demonstrate that Sulzer proprietary School Winterthur, and has been working with Sulzer Chemtech
packing correlations are very accurate in heat for more than 30 years.
transfer calculations. Dong Jiao-Jiao is a Sulzer Senior Application Engineer from the
Separation Technology business unit of Sulzer Chemtech China.
Conclusions In her 10 years with Sulzer, her main responsibilities have
A corroded DCAC column was replaced with a included monitoring the changing needs of the air separation
market, and driving for the best design and optimisation of
new packed column. Due to the high capacity of
column internals in tune with times. She holds a master’s
packing, the cross sectional area of the new col-
degree in chemical engineering from East China University of
umn was reduced by more than 50%. Revamp Science and Technology.
of the external inlet piping was eliminated after
using an advanced gas inlet device. The operating
temperature of the cooled air matches prediction.

LINKS
References
1 Gorak A, Schoenmakers H, Distillation: Operation and More articles from: Sulzer
Applications, Ch. 6, Elsevier B.V., 2014. More articles from the following categories:
2 Spiegel L, Bomio P, Hunkeler R, Direct heat and mass transfer Corrosion and Fouling Control
in structured packings, Chemical Engineering & Processing, Vol. Heat Transfer Mass Transfer
35, 1996.

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