Differences between sieve tray towers and packed tower

1. Regular fillers have large void spaces, enabling high production capacity; moreover, a smaller tower diameter facilitates transportation. The void ratio of regular fillers can exceed 95%. In a sieve plate tower, the area of the perforated plates accounts for about 80% of the tower’s cross-sectional area, while the porosity is around 8–12%; both values are much lower than those of a packing layer. For the same load, the diameter of a packed tower is smaller than that of a sieve plate tower ； Under normal circumstances, its cross-sectional area is only about 70% that of a sieve plate tower; for large air separation units, a smaller tower diameter facilitates transportation. 2. The liquid holdup in a packed tower is low, typically only 1% to 6% of the tower’s volume, whereas in a tray tower it is 8% to N% of the tower’s volume. A low liquid holdup means that the liquid stays in the tower for a short time, resulting in a low operating pressure drop; this also facilitates operation under varying conditions, although this needs to be verified through actual operations under such conditions in the future.

What’s been explained on the 2nd floor is clear enough; let me add a bit more: Packed tower: Mostly used in gas absorption processes. Tray tower: Used in distillation processes