Experimental study of the flow structure in packed tray-type column extractors

Liquid extraction is a well-known separation process that has been widely used in the chemical industry for many years, for example, in the selective purification of oil fractions, in the purification of liquefied gases from hydrogen sulfide, in the production of petrochemicals, in the recovery of metals, in nuclear fusion, in food and pharmaceutical industry. On-going elaborations aimed at engineering solution search in order to improve mass-transfer processes are in progress on a permanent basis. Combination of trays and packing in the fractionator results in stream disequilibrium which leads to worse hydrodynamic conditions in the splitter (extraction, rectifier tower and etc.) and causes significant difficulties in stable operating process maintaining. The study objective is to review the structure of stream structures in the extraction tower via examples of trays and packing combinations since the mentioned contact devices are widely used in industry but they are conventionally applied as individual contact devices and not in combination. Combination of the above contact devices may earn a supplementary synergetic effect. In the course of the experiment it was found out and described in graphic format that stream disequilibrium could be eliminated and hydrodynamic conditions in the extraction tower could be improved via extra stream supply in the tower shell. Research will be useful for the development of new designs of column equipment, for example, extraction. In order to expand the experiment in various hydrodynamic modes, it is proposed to simulate the experiment using, for example, the Solid Works 2020 software package and, in particular, one of its add-ons - Flow Simulation.