Tower Doctor
Can the Cure be as Bad as the Illness?
Henry Kister shares lessons learned from troubleshooting distillation towers
D
uring a course that I was
presenting in Houston one
year, a participant asked
me the following at the end
of one of the sessions: “Do you have
experience with BX-type wire-gauze
structured packings?”
“Sure,” I responded. “Wire gauze
packings are used extensively in
deep-vacuum clean chemical ap-
plications. In some deep-vacuum
specialty chemical finishing col-
umns, they are the ‘standard’ pack-
ing used.”
The course participant further
inquired: “Their vendors claim
they give a very good efficiency —
about five stages per meter. What
is your experience?”
“I have had excellent experience
with them. As long as the tower
and internals are clean and well-
designed, the liquid loads are not
too high, and the distribution is
good, they usually match the vendor
claims. FRI [Fractionation Research
Inc., www.fri.org] tested them with
excellent results that were published
in the open literature. I plotted the
FRI data in my Distillation Design
book [1],” I explained.
“This is not what we are seeing
in our tower. We are getting one
stage per meter. Nowhere near the
five stages per meter the vendor
claims. The separation is terrible,”
he continued.
“Do you have a drawing of your
distributors?” I asked. Our failure sur-
vey [2] showed that 80% of packed
tower failures are due to poor liquid
distribution. So looking at the distrib-
utors is a good starting point.
He pulled out drawings of the dis-
tributors. I took some time to review
and understand them, then did a
couple of sums. All looked good.
“These are good designs,” I
stated. “I do not see any problems
with them.”
He looked proudly at me.
“These are our own designs. I’m
glad you approve.”
I was at a loss. I expected some-
thing major to be wrong with the dis-
tributors. I found nothing.
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING WWW.CHEMENGONLINE.COM
“Did you inspect
the installation?” I
then asked.
“You bet. Every bit
of it. Everything was
like it should have
been,” he replied.
“I give up. All looks
good. I have no idea
why you are getting
such low efficiency.”
I started packing
up, but then some-
thing stopped me.
I turned to him and
asked, “Usually the
packing vendor de-
signs the distributors.
But you said they
were your design.”
“Indeed,” he said.
“The original distrib-
utors were designed
by the vendor. They
did not work. So we
FIGURE 1. This diagram shows the tower containing wire-mesh packing
replaced them with that experienced poor efficiency (Diagram courtesy of H. Z. Kister)
our designs that
you liked.” that they cannot be cleaned online.
“What was wrong with the ven- Plugged packings give poor efficien-
dor’s distributors?” I asked. cy. You are lucky that at least the liq-
“They used to plug all the time with uid is going through.”
solids that came in with the feed and Takeaway: A cure can be just as
reflux,” was his response. bad as the illness. Always keep the
The exploratory questions contin- big picture in mind. ■
ued: “Why didn’t you install filters on Edited by Dorothy Lozowski
these streams?”
“We had filters. They did not work.”
“What was wrong with the filters?” References
“They used to plug up every few 1. Kister, H. Z., "Distillation Design", McGraw-Hill, New York 1992.
hours. Our operators got tired of 2. Kister, H. Z., "What Caused Tower Malfunctions in the Last 50
Years?", Trans. IChemE, Vol 81, Part A, p. 5, January 2003.
cleaning baskets twice per shift. So
they pulled out the baskets.”
At that, a moment of insight ar- Author
rived. I then said, “Do you realize Henry Z. Kister is a senior fellow
and the director of fractionation
what happened? [Figure 1] When technology at Fluor Corp. (3 Polaris
you removed the filter baskets, the Way, Aliso Viejo, CA; Phone: 949-
349-4679; Email: henry.kister@
solids traveled into the distribu- fluor.com). He has over 35 years of
tors and plugged them. Then you experience in design, trouble-
shooting, revamping, field consult-
changed the distributors to a de- ing, control and startup of fraction-
sign that does not plug and allows ation processes and equipment.
the solids through. Do you want to Kister is the author of three books, the distillation equip-
ment chapter in Perry’s Handbook, and over 140 arti-
guess where the solids are now?” cles, and has taught the IChemE-sponsored “Practical
“You think they are in the packing?” Distillation Technology” course 550 times in 26 coun-
tries. A recipient of several awards, Kister obtained his
he asked after a short hesitation. B.E. and M.E. degrees from the University of New South
“You got it. BX-type gauze pack- Wales in Australia. He is a member of the NAE, a Fellow
of IChemE and AIChE, and serves on the FRI Technical
ings are excellent filters, except Advisory and Design Practices.
AUGUST 2023 29