TECHNOLOGY

BEYOND BACK-TO-BASICS: PROCESS PRINCIPLES AND CONCEP TS — 5

Understanding how distillation trays work

Norman P. Lieberman
Process Improvement Engineering
Metairie, La.

A distillation tray is used to mix vapors and liq- “Welcome, Norman, to the Eternal Life,” Stokes
uids together. The better the mixing, the more effi- announced to me cordially. “Can we answer any
ciently the tray works. Tray efficiency also depends questions?”
on two other factors: how well the droplets of en- “Well, yes, Mr. Stokes. I’m interested in entrain-
trained liquids are separated from the vapor’s flow ment. On earth, this is a big problem affecting frac-
rising from the tray deck and how well the bub- PROCESSING tionation efficiency. I assume it’s also a problem
bles of vapor are separated from the liquid flowing here in the Eternal World. Can you tell me, then,
down from the tray deck through the downcomer. what factors increase entrainment?”
Regarding tray fractionation efficiency, the latter Stokes explained several main factors that im-
factor is of secondary importance. The former factor—i.e., pact entrainment. These include:
entrainment—is of primary importance. It’s what Stokes’s • Droplet size. The smaller the drop, the greater the rate of
law is all about. entrainment.
• Viscosity of the continuous phase. High viscosity promotes
Entrainment, tray efficiency entrainment.
As a young man, I would often dream of meeting my child- • Density difference between the vapor and liquid phases.
hood heroes: Nikola Tesla, Daniel Bernoulli, Isaac Newton, Reduced density difference promotes entrainment.
Sir George Stokes. • Velocity. Higher velocities promote entrainment as well.
On one occasion, I dreamed that I’d passed on to my eter- “I’ve actually reduced all these factors into a simple equa-
nal and heavenly home and was welcomed by my famous tion,” Stokes explained with a smile. “I call it Stokes’s law.”
colleagues and fellow scientists. Mathematically, we say entrainment is proportional to V
x (DV ÷ DL)0.5, where V = velocity of vapor phase, DV = den-
sity of vapor phase, and DL = density of liquid phase.
GENERAL INTRODUCTION “But Mr. Stokes,” I objected, “how about viscosity and the
droplet size?”
Geared to young and seasoned professionals alike, “Beyond “Well, Norman, the droplet size is usually unknown. Vis-
back-to-basics: Process principles and concepts” is a new cosity of a vapor phase is usually small, and I normally ne-
series of articles designed to present a straightforward ap- glect it. By small, I mean less than 0.3 cp.”
proach to mastering the principles and concepts all process “That’s all quite interesting. But if I could take a single
engineers should be able to apply without the need of a step to suppress entrainment, which is a source of evil on
computer. earth, what would you recommend?”
While simulations and models are useful for examining “The best option would be to avoid high localized veloci-
long-term operational issues, they cannot replace the di- ties of the vapor phase. Norman, I would also…”
mension of human logic and reason required when tackling “Wait a bit, Mr. Stokes!” Nikola Tesla interrupted. “Mr.
the array of complex—and sometimes life-threatening— Lieberman has arrived in Eternity prematurely. He’s being
situations that occur in process plants. deported at once, back to his earthly home in New Orleans.”
Using experiences from the author’s more than 50-year
career in the process industry, articles in the series will pro- Liquid entrainment, fractionation
vide approaches to understanding core process concepts Originally, the process of distillation did not utilize trays.
in ways that will equip the engineer to walk out of an office, It relied on pots (Fig. 1). The pots, which were very large,
into a plant, and directly resolve process deficiencies via completely separated the liquid phase from the vapor phase
small operational changes or simple retrofits. before the liquid and vapor left each pot. That is, there was
This is the fifth article in the series. no entrainment.
Each pot was an individual separation stage. If the sepa-

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 TECHNOLOGY

and the tray above gets smaller, it takes less vapor velocity
SAFETY NOTE: INSPECTING REFINERY DISTILLATION TOWERS to blow the liquid from the lower tray up to the tray above.
Most refinery distillation towers will be fouled with iron sul- For example, let’s say that I’m separating propane from
fide. The black, fine material that you find hard to wash off butane. My propane product (i.e., LPG in 5-gal containers
your hands is not normally coke but iron sulfide. sold in Walmart) has a maximum butane spec of 2%. If the
Iron sulfide will not autoignite until it dries out. When it vapor rate flowing up through a tower increases, the drop-
does dry, it will begin to burn at ambient temperatures, and lets of liquid from a lower tray will be entrained and blown
the sulfide deposits will tend to smolder rather than flare up.
The heat liberated is relatively small, as the sulfides burn up to the tray above. As the liquid in the lower tray is rich in
with a pale blue flame not visible in sunlight. butane, the entrained droplets will increase the butane con-
The danger is not heat, but sulfur dioxide (SO2) libera- tent of the upper tray. Eventually, as the entrained droplets
tion in a confined space. SO2 is deadly at 1,000 ppm. It will reach the top tray, the overhead LPG propane product will
kill you just as fast and efficiently as hydrogen sulfide. I’ve be contaminated with butane. Thus, fractionation efficiency
almost learned this deadly lesson from personal experience
on two occasions. is reduced.
In general, refinery distillation towers should be chemi-
cally cleaned for iron sulfide removal before the tower is Foam
opened for inspection. Note that iron sulfide is not water The fluid on a distillation tray deck is not actually liquid but
soluble. Citric acid is one solvent that can safely remove iron foam or froth. The vapor bubbling up through the holes on
sulfide deposits.
the tray deck mixes with the liquid from the tray above to
form foam. The foam overflows the low dam into the down-
comer (Fig. 2). If the downcomer is too small, however, the
ration of vapor and liquid phases was perfect, the pot had a foam fills up the downcomer and backs up onto the tray
separation, or stage efficiency, of 100%. The more pots that above it. The foam level on the tray then increases. As the
were arranged in series, the greater the degree of separation froth or foam level increases on the tray, so does the height
that could be achieved between the two products. of the entrained liquid, or spray height.
In our case, we are trying to separate propane and butane When the spray height from the tray below reaches the
as efficiently as possible. To avoid the expense and mechani- tray above, tray fractionation efficiency becomes worse due
cal complexity of dozens of these pots, the distillation col- to entrainment.
umn was invented about 180 years ago.
Each tray is intended to represent a pot, or at least a por- Reflux
tion of a pot. If the tray really is working as well as a pot, it’s More reflux improves tray fractionation efficiency. The trays
said to have 100% tray fractionation efficiency. If the tray is work harder and better due to the increased vapor and liquid
only working half as well as the pot, it is said to have a 50% traffic on the tray decks.
tray efficiency. The usual cause of low tray efficiency is en- The problem is that the reflux comes from the vapor
trainment due to excessive vapor velocity. generated by the reboiler. If there is too much vapor flow
As the distance between the liquid level on the tray below through the tray decks, then the vapor velocity may become
excessive. According to the law of Mr. Stokes, my mentor in
the Next World, this will cause exces-
THREE-STAGE PRIMITIVE DISTILLATION UNIT FIG. 1
sive spray height, or entrainment.
It’s rather like exercise, where too
Cooling
CW CW much running actually can be bad for
water (CW)
one’s health. Too much reflux and too
much reboiler heat are going to make
Overhead fractionation efficiency worse rather
Feed product, than better due to entrainment.
propane Of course, you can’t just increase the
reflux rate without more reboiler duty
because the reflux is just condensed va-
por generated from the reboiler that ris-
Bottoms es through the trays, through the over-
product, head condenser, and into the tower’s
butane reflux drum.

Heat Heat Heat

Downcomer backup
Downcomers often back up onto the

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 TECHNOLOGY

tray above, causing a high froth or foam level on the tray and
a consequent entrainment of droplets of liquid to the tray BENEFIT OF VALVE-CAP TRAYS
above the tray draining into the downcomer. Valve caps are supposed to act as check valves to retard
Usually, it’s not the downcomer itself that has too small liquid leakage through tray decks. This appears not to be
an area. It’s more typically because the downcomer is too the case. The valve caps don’t seem to appreciably reduce
short. The height of foam in the downcomer is mainly a con- tray deck leakage. What they certainly do in refinery dirty
sequence of the pressure drop of the vapor flowing through services is to stick to the tray decks. This restricts vapor
the tray above the downcomer (Fig. 2). As the vapor flows flow and pushes up the foam level in the downcomer, caus-
through this tray, it undergoes a pressure drop due to the ing the tray to flood.
restriction of the caps, or orifices, on the tray deck and the My practice is to use a grid-type tray. This is like a valve
weight of the liquid on the tray deck. tray, but the cap is in a fixed position. It’s more or less the
In other words, the pressure of the vapor below the tray same as a sieve tray but with about 10-15% more capacity.
pushes up the foam height in the downcomer. Once the
downcomer becomes full of foam, the foam backs up onto
the tray above that downcomer. The extra weight of foam on
the tray deck then increases the pressure drop of the vapor Tray efficiency
through that tray deck, which in turn increases the force Certainly, tray fractionation efficiency is reduced by entrain-
pushing up the liquid out of the downcomer. ment, which is also called jet flood. Most tray efficiency
The problem feeds upon itself until the tower’s trays problems, however, are caused by tray decks that are not
above the tray where the problem began start to operate in a level. The liquid on the tray deck may leak through the per-
state called “fully developed flood.” forations on the trays in those areas which are lowest. The
A tray downcomer can also fill with foam because it can’t vapor flow will be concentrated at the highest tray deck ar-
drain out of the downcomer fast enough. This common prob- eas. This all results in vapor-liquid channeling, which is bad
lem is most often caused by a too-small downcomer clear- for tray vapor-liquid contacting efficiency.
ance (Fig. 2). A reasonable downcomer clearance is usually The out-of-levelness of a tray that will cause a large loss in
2-3 in. Any clearance less than 1.5 in. is likely to result in tray fractionation efficiency is related to the pressure drop of
downcomer flooding and liquid backup on the tray above. the vapor flowing through the tray deck holes or valve caps.
Unfortunately, if the downcomer clearance is greater than If the low points of a tray (i.e., portions of the tray deck be-
the tray’s outlet dam height, the downcomer will also back low the tray support ring) are less than the pressure drop of
up onto the tray above. This is called unsealing of the down- the vapor flowing through the tray deck perforations, then
comer. Vapor will blow into the bottom of the downcomer and the liquid will leak through the tray deck and fail to come in
displace the liquid flow, resulting in fully developed flood. good contact with the vapor flow.
As you read this section, keep in mind that the down- To calculate the pressure drop of the vapor through the
comer is full of frothy foam and not the denser liquid phase. tray perforations, use the following equation:
Hence, this foam is rather easily displaced by the vapor DP = K x (DV ÷ DL) x V2 = inches of liquid, where DV, DL =
flowing up through an unsealed tray downcomer. density of vapor, liquid; V = hole velocity, fps; K = 0.3 (sieve
trays); K = 0.9 (valve-cap trays); and K =
DISTILLATION-TRAY ENTRAINMENT FIG. 2
0.6 (grid-type trays).
Valve caps do not appreciably retard
Weir the tendency of liquid to leak through
the tray deck panels. Bubble-cap trays
would retard the liquid leakage through
Tray deck the tray decks, but are unfortunately sel-
dom used in a modern distillation tower
Entrainment
Downcomer
(see accompanying box).
Foam
I asked Mr. Isaac Newton while I was
awaiting my transport back home from
the After Life about why bubble caps
were no longer used in hydrocarbon dis-
Downcomer tillation service.
clearance Foam
“Norm,” Isaac explained, “the answer is
Downcomer that there is no answer. That goes also for
the meaning of life. Only God knows.”

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