Questions regarding the selection of distillation column types

There is a corrosion issue; the tray is corroded and leaking severely, rendering that tray unusable. In the packing section, only this particular mass of packing has suffered corrosion; the decline in performance is not as significant as that in a plate tower.

The choice of distillation column should be determined by your requirements for separation, etc.; whether to use packing or trays depends on your cost considerations and separation efficiency. :(The following is just my personal guess. There are also packed towers for separating corroded materials. Our company has always used regular enamel-packed columns; we haven’t seen any applications involving the thermal effects of salts, acids, or acetic acid. Perhaps packed towers are more prone to irregular temperature profiles in their towers. In plate-type towers, the liquid flow rate is high, so the thermal effects might not be as significant, after all, the amount of material on each plate is relatively large. At high pressures, the impact of air currents should be greater, and the strength of packed materials is likely inferior to that of plate-type elements.)

I’ve found the answer to this; thank you

In industry, the performance indicators for tower equipment are mainly evaluated in the following aspects: ① Production capacity； ⑦Separation efficiency ； ③Tower pressure drop ； ④Operational flexibility: ⑤ Structure, manufacturing, and cost, etc. 1. Production capacity – Therefore, per unit cross-sectional area of the tower, the production capacity of a packed tower is generally higher than that of a plate tower. 2 Separation efficiency Studies have shown that under normal and low pressure conditions (pressure less than 0.3 MPa), the separation efficiency of packed towers is significantly higher than that of plate towers; whereas under high-pressure conditions, the separation efficiency of plate towers is slightly better than that of packed towers. 3 Pressure drop: Typically, the pressure drop in a plate tower is about 5 times higher than that in a packed tower. Reducing pressure not only lowers operating costs and energy consumption, but also reduces the temperature at the bottom of the distillation column, which is beneficial for the separation of heat-sensitive substances. 4 Operating flexibility: Generally speaking, the packing itself has a high degree of adaptability to changes in gas and liquid loads; therefore, the operating flexibility of a packed tower depends on the design of its internal components, especially that of the liquid distributor. Thus, the operating flexibility of a packed tower can be determined according to actual requirements. In contrast, the operating flexibility of a plate tower is limited by factors such as liquid flooding on the plates, liquid mist entrainment, and the capacity of the downcomers, resulting in generally lower operating flexibility. 5. Structure, manufacturing, and cost, etc. Generally speaking, the structure of a packed tower is simpler than that of a plate tower, which makes its manufacturing and maintenance easier; however, the cost of a packed tower is usually higher than that of a plate tower. It should be noted that the liquid holdup in a packed tower is lower than that in a plate tower. A higher liquid holdup enables smoother operation of the tower and reduces the likelihood of rapid precipitation of the product; therefore, plate towers are easier to operate than packed towers. Plate towers make it easy to implement side feed and withdrawal, while packed towers are not very suitable for complex scenarios such as side feed and withdrawal. For local packing with a large specific surface area, the packing layer is prone to clogging; therefore, packed towers are not suitable for directly treating materials containing suspended solids or those that tend to polymerize.

Plate towers are used in processes with heat effects because heat exchange devices can be placed between the plates of the tower

Packed towers can also extract heat from the middle as well