Abstract
Significant effort has been devoted to the study of mass transfer in
sheet metal structured packings over the past half century. A number of
mass transfer correlations have appeared in the literature as a result
of those efforts. Unfortunately no one of these correlations has shown
itself to be reliable over the full range of chemical systems, column
operating conditions, and packing topologies encountered today. In an
attempt to rectify some of the shortcomings of earlier correlations for
sheet metal structured packings we have employed a new data analysis
methodology which simultaneously fits 〈HETP〉 data and mass transfer
area data. The correlation we report upon here includes 444 〈HETP〉
values from a variety of systems, operating pressures, and packing
designs, along with 409 mass transfer area
measurements.1–9 We demonstrate that this correlation
outperforms all others while remaining simple enough to implement in
process simulation software.