SiC ceramic foam has large specific surface area, three-dimensional foam structure, excellent thermophysical properties and excellent acid and alkali erosion resistance. Tech Ceramic develops a new type of SiC structured corrugation foam packing which combines the advantage of ceramic foam and corrugated structure packing.
The SiC structured corrugation foam packing (SiC-SCFP) has a specific surface area of 1000-3000 m2/m3, the theoretical plate number is 30-90% higher than the wire mesh packing, the wet plate pressure drop is reduced by 33% and the efficiency is increased by 50%. It is especially suitable for corrosive materials and difficult-to-separate materials. It is an ideal new type of structure packing material.
We have made a experiment, using SCFP-SiC and BX which have the same structure as 500X.
In this figure it shows the wet pressure drop of SiC-SCFP and MFP in the liquid spray density of 7.5 m3/m2h. MFP has higher wet pressure drop and it firstly comes to the flooding point. The recurring reason of this phenomenon is that the gas and liquid twisted and turned inside the MFP rather than distributed homogeneous.
This figure shows the wet pressure drop of SiC-SCFP is higher than BX in the liquid spray density of 18 m3/m2h. This is probably due to SiC-SCFP has the thicker sheet thickness than BX. The sheet thickness of SiC-SCFP is 1mm. However, the sheet thickness of BX is only 0.15 mm. So, SiC-SCFP has the less area of gas passageway compared with BX. Not only that, the coarser surface of SiC-SCFP than BX, although they have the same structure. Therefore, compared with MFP and BX, SiC-SCFP still has a relatively acceptable wet pressure drop.
MFP has the lowest flooding F-factor which means MFP is the easiest one to flood. Therefore, the distillation operating range of MFP will be largely restricted because of its poor distribution of gas and liquid. Meanwhile, the flooding curve of SiC-SCFP is slightly lower
than that of BX on account of a thicker sheet thickness of SiC-SCFP. Therefore, compared with BX, SiC-SCFP has the less gas passageway, which will be easier to cause flooding.
The SiC ceramic foam material has a smaller contact angle and a strong adsorption of water. Therefore, the wettability of SiC-SCFP is better than BX. Besides, the special three-dimension foam structure increases the effective channel for the flow of liquids. All of these characteristics can give rise to high hold-up. Meanwhile, the rapid increase of dynamic liquid holdup for BX occurs at lower gas and liquid velocities.
The HETP of SiC-SCFP is much lower than HETP of BX. The HETP of MFP is between the SiC-SCFP and BX. Furthermore, its variation tendency is different from SiC-SCFP and BX on account of its different structure. This monolithic structure also leads to its poor operating range. Therefore, foam material and structured corrugation structure give SiC-SCFP an extraordinarily significant mass transfer performance.