Prismatic heat and mass exchange column packing (Classification and Design Survey) [in Ukrainian]

The subject of the study is the design of prismatic nozzles of heat and mass exchange equipment and means for their oriented placement in the contact zone of the column apparatus. The purpose of the article is a critical analysis of the designs of prism-shaped mass exchange column packings used in chemical, petrochemical, oil refining, food, microbiological, thermal power, gas and liquid industrial emissions treatment systems, and other industries. One of the most common, structurally simple and universal contact elements of column mass exchangers is an annular nozzle in the form of a right circular ring cylinder. However, along with the packing of the specified shape, many other designs of cylindrical packings have been developed, in particular in the form of prisms, i.e. polyhedra, two of which, located in parallel planes, have faces (bases) that are congruent polygons, and the other faces (sides) are parallelograms that have common sides with the specified polygons. In most cases, unlike the more versatile ring packing in the form of a right circular ring cylinder, the prismatic packing is used as a structured packing. The undoubted advantages of prismatic packings are high manufacturability and versatility, and the disadvantages are a relatively low specific surface area in the case of a tight fit of the flat side faces of adjacent packing elements. That is why various technical solutions are proposed for the remote location of prismatic elements, both due to various protrusions on the side faces of the packing, and the use of special distance devices to separate adjacent packing elements from each other. In the case of loading the prismatic packing oriented, namely in a vertical position with a certain gap between adjacent elements, not only does the specific surface area of the packing layer increase, but similar hydrodynamic conditions of the processed phases inside and outside the packing elements are also ensured. At the same time, a structured (oriented, regular) packing has lower hydraulic resistance and a higher permissible speed of the light phase. Despite the numerous designs of prismatic packings, primarily in the form of almost all types of prisms, namely regular and irregular, uniform and truncated, right and oblique, star prism and toroidal prism, twisted, as well as antiprisms, improvements in their designs and methods of placement in mass exchange devices continue. The above design survey may be useful to designers and inventors in finding innovative technical solutions in the field of contact elements of heat and mass exchange equipment.