Improving sieve tray performance with knitted mesh packing

Sieve trays have become popular contacting devices for mass and heat transfer applications because of their relative simplicity and low cost. As a result, much has been published in recent years on their hydraulic and mass transfer performance. However, little has appeared on improving contact performance by adding a shallow bed of packing on the trays. The hydraulic and mass transfer performance of sieve trays containing a 25-mm bed of a knitted mesh packing was studied for the Girdler-Sulfide (GS) heavy water production process operating at 320C and 2.17 MPa. With packing, tray pressure drops increased, tray-to-tray entrainment decreased, and efficiency increased by 3 to 20 percentage points. The greatest efficiency gains occurred in the low gas flow range where the tray operated in the bubble regime