Hydrodynamics of distillation tray column with structured catalyst containing envelopes: Experiments versus CFD simulations

We report studies on the hydrodynamics of a distillation sieve tray column in which structured catalyst containing wire-gauze envelopes are dispersed along the liquid flow direction. The gas and liquid phases are in cross-cur rent contact on the tray and were studied using Computational Fluid Dynamic s (CFD). Experiments were carried out to determine the clear liquid height on a rectangular tray as a function of geometry and operating conditions. T he agreement between the experiments and CFD simulations was found to be ve ry good, suggesting that CFD simulations can be used for design and scale-u p purposes.