What is a flooded tower?

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1. What is a flooded tower? During the distillation process, liquid gradually accumulates above a certain tray, eventually filling part of the tower section and obstructing the upward flow of gas. This prevents proper mass and heat transfer between the gas and liquid phases, a condition known as tower flooding. The phenomenon of tower flooding is: the temperature at the top of the tower decreases ； The liquid level in the reflux tank is dropping ； The liquid level and pressure at the bottom of the tower increase. 2. The reasons that lead to tower flooding are as follows: (1) The settlement pipe is blocked, preventing the return fluid from flowing downward. At the start of operation, debris such as iron shavings and welding slag, the accumulation of corrosion products on the equipment during normal production, or the precipitation of solids from liquids, along with the self-polymers in solutions, can all easily cause blockages in the downcomers. (2) The amount of liquid is too large, causing the downcomer to become overloaded. 3. There are two methods for handling this: appropriately reducing the feed rate and the return flow rate ； If the equipment fails, operations will be halted for repair.