Distillation Column Internals
Bubble cap trays
A bubble cap tray has riser or chimney fitted over each hole, and a cap that covers the riser. The cap is mounted so
that there is a space between riser and cap to allow the passage of vapour. Vapour rises through the chimney and is
directed downward by the cap, finally discharging through slots in the cap, and finally bubbling through the liquid on
the tray.
Sieve trays
Sieve trays are simply metal plates with holes in them. Vapour passes straight upward through the liquid on the plate.
The arrangement, number and size of the holes are design parameters.
Valve trays
In valve trays, perforations are covered by liftable caps. Vapour flows lifts the caps, thus self creating a flow area for
the passage of vapour. The lifting cap directs the vapour to flow horizontally into the liquid, thus providing better
mixing than is possible in sieve trays.
This FLEXITRAY valve tray is a steel sheet on which liftable valves are mounted. They are much more efficient than
sieve trays. Picture of Koch-Glitsch, LP.
Liquid and Vapour Flows in a Tray Column
The image below show the direction of vapour and liquid flow across a tray, and across a column.
Each tray has 2 conduits, one on each side, called downcomer. Liquid falls through the downcomers by gravity from
one tray to the one below it.
A weir on the tray ensures that there is always some liquid (holdup) on the tray and is designed such that the the
holdup is at a suitable height, e.g. such that the bubble caps are covered by liquid.
Being lighter, vapour flows up the column and is forced to pass through the liquid, via the openings on each tray. The
area allowed for the passage of vapour on each tray is called the active tray area.
Tray Designs
A tray essentially acts as a mini-column, each accomplishing a fraction of the separation task. From this we can
deduce that the more trays there are, the better the degree of separation and that overall separation efficiency will
depend significantly on the design of tray. Trays are designed to maximise vapour-liquid contact by considering the
• liquid distribution and
• vapour distribution
on the tray. This is because better vapour-liquid contact means better separation at each tray, translating to better
column performance. Less trays will be required to achieve the same degree of separation. Attendant benefits include
less energy usage and lower construction costs.
Structured packing
The term structured packing refers to a range of specially designed materials for use in absorption and distillation
columns. Structured packings typically consist of thin corrugated metal plates or gauzes arranged in a way that they
force fluids to take complicated paths through the column, thereby creating a large surface area for contact between
different phases.
Structured packing is formed from corrugated sheets of perforated embossed metal or wire gauze. The result is a
very open honeycomb structure with inclined flow channels giving a relatively high surface area but with very low
resistance to gas flow.
The surface enhancements have been chosen to maximize liquid spreading. These characteristics tend to show
significant performance benefits in low pressure and low irrigation rate applications.
Packings versus Trays
A tray column that is facing throughput problems may be de-bottlenecked by replacing a section of trays with
packings. This is because
• packings provide extra inter-facial area for liquid-vapour contact
• efficiency of separation is increased for the same column height
• packed columns are shorter than trayed columns
Packed columns are called continuous-contact columns while trayed columns are called staged-contact columns
because of the manner in which vapour and liquid are contacted.
Graphic courtesy of Bismarck State College National Energy Center of Excellence