DESIGNING OF

ABSORPTION COLUMN

GAIL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

NOIDA

GUIDE
VAIBHAV RAJ
MR. N.K. PANDE 20TH MAY 2019-28TH JUNE 2019
ECHE16034
D.G.M ( R&D )
RGIPT
CONTENTS
• PROBLEM STATEMENT
• APPROACH FOR SOLVING
• CONCLUSION FOR APPROACH
• NEW APPROACH FOR GIVEN PROBLEM
• STOICHIOMETRIC METHOD
• SOLUBILITY CHART
• EXPERIMENTS
• CALCULATIONS
• CONCLUSION FOR SECOND APPROACH
• NEW PROBLEM STATEMENT
• APPROACH FOR NEW PROBLEM STATEMENT
• RESULTS
• REFERENCES
1. PROBLEM STATEMENT
Designing of an absorption column for absorbing co2 to bring down pH of an
alkaline aqueous solution of 1.5% NaOH to 7.5 of Gail pata plant in IOPS section.

Design Basis
• Flow rate of alkaline water = 8535 Kg/Hr. NaOH (WT %) = 1.5
• Purity of CO2 gas is 100% and available in plenty at .5 Kg/Cm2 at 250C.

Results Part should include

• Number of Trays
• Types of trays and efficiency
• Column height
• Diameter
APPROACH FOR SOLVING
For Tray Tower
Assuming dilute solutions
• Get Equilibrium Data By Solving For psat at given operating conditions.
• Use Kremser equation for determining Number of Trays.
• Do further calculations for getting other details.

Problem
• Kremser equation don’t work here as concentration of gas gets cancelled out.
• Acidic medium so there will be corrosion problem.
APPROACH FOR SOLVING
For Packed Tower
Assuming dilute solutions
• Get Equilibrium Data By Solving For psat at given operating conditions.
• Use Coulborn equation for determining Number of transfer unit.
• Do further calculations for getting other details.

Problem
• Coulborn equation don’t work here as concentration of gas gets cancelled out which yield no
result.
CONCLUSION FOR APPROACH
• Approach was related to Physical Absorption.
• Tray tower and packed tower are not suitable for these cases.

• H2CO3 is a acidic system if we use then it may corrode tray tower.

• We normally go to tray or packed tower when dissolution of gas in liquid is more.

• In these cases Bubble column or Spray Tower are preffered are preffered.
• Can go to Packing for corrosive liquid but here dissolution is low so not going for packed tower.
NEW APPROACH

Bubble column Absorber

In these absorbers gas is forced under pressure through perforated pipes submerged in the
scrubbing liquid. As such the gas phase is dispersed and the liquid phase is continuous. As the
bubbles rise through the liquid, absorption of the gas occurs. This type of device suffers from
the high pressure drop due to the liquid hydrostatic head.
STOICHIOMETRIC METHOD
REACTIONS
When Ph > 12
CO2 + H20  H2CO3
H2CO3  H+ + HCO3-
HCO3- + NaOH  NaHCO3 + H20 (Titrate Solution Against HCL And Get Amount Of Bi Carbonates)
When Ph < 12
CO2 + H20  H2CO3
H2CO3  2H+ + CO32-
CO32- + NaOH  Na2CO3 + H2O (Titrate Solution Against HCL And Get Amount Of Carbonates)
STOICHIOMETRIC METHOD
REACTIONS

• H2CO3 + 2NaOH  Na2CO3 + 2H20

• 1 Mole of CO2 consumes 2 Mole of NaOH. ( Theoretical quantity of CO2 required for
Calculations. )
• Amount of NaOH = (8535 X 1.5)/(100 X 40) KMol/Hr.

• Amount of CO2 required = 8535 X 1.5/(100 X 40 X 2 ) Kmol /Hr.

SOLUBILITY CHART
CO2 (g)  CO2 (l)

• For reaction of CO2 with H2CO3 it should be converted to aqueous medium.

• By help of solubility chart we can get details about how much CO 2 is soluble in water at constant
temperature.

• By solubility chart at constant temperature can get data about the pressure and if flowrate of co 2 is needed to
be decreased then pressure should be increased.
• Also from here we are getting idea about how much water is required to complete the reaction but there must
be some off gas or some excess co2 which is unaccountable till now.

• So desired flow rate of gas comes from experiments.

EXPERIMENTS
BATCH PROCESS
• CO2 water system was selected in a batch process based on that continuous process was
generalized.
• Bubbling was initiated by maintain proper velocity so that it didn’t formed slug.
• After that flow rate was measured by measuring time of the experiment until Ph was dropped to
7.5.
• With the help of batch process we are getting rough idea of how much time we should keep it in
actual process to get desired output.
• Also getting idea of how much cross section should be given to get a desired output.
• Variables here were velocity of bubble and diameter of column.
CALCULATIONS
HIT AND TRIAL APPROACH

• Theoretical Flow rate of co2 was taken.

• Determining flow rate of co2 based on given velocity and flow rate.

• Determined diameter for several trials taking flow rate variation.

• So after that diameter of column was selected.
NEW PROBLEM STATEMENT
IOPS section of pata plant was receiving , Flue gas comprising of carbon di oxide, Sulfur di oxide, Nitrogen oxide is
available for scrubbing at 5 Kg/Cm2 with water to reduce the carbon di oxide content in exit gas stream to 5 %.

Design Basis

• Flow Rate of Gas = 20 Normal Cubic Meter.

• Pure solvent is used for absorption.
• CO2 concentration at inlet – 30%
APPROACH
PHYSICAL ABSORPTION WITH PURE SOLUTION
Steps
• Getting equilibrium data and equation.
• Getting the required flow rate of water from solubility data 25 0 celcius.
• Getting operating line equation
• Solving for Kremser equation using absorption factor.
• Calculating number of trays.
• Using fair’s correlation calculated the diameter.
• Taking appropriate tray spacing and space for manhole, demister, mist, nozzle, liquid height in bottom.
RESULTS
Based on case of physical absorption approach following things were calculated.

• Theoretical Number of Trays

• Tray Efficiency
• Actual no of trays
• Column Diameter
• Column Height
PLANT VISIT
THANK YOU
REFERENCES

• http://www.chemalone.com/criteria-of-selection-between-different-types-of-absorbers/
• https://nptel.ac.in/courses/103103035/module4/lec4.pdf
• https://books.google.co.in/books?
id=a6uMtgoxjyIC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false