Packings fouling resistance

Random and structured packings are common in commercial practice. The application of grids is limited primarily to heat-transfer and wash services and/or where a high fouling resistance is required. Grids are discussed in detail elsewhere (Kister, Distillation Design, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1992). 

Aromatic polyamide (aramid) membranes are a copolymer of 1-3 diaminobenzene with 1-3 and 1-4 benzenedicarboxylic acid chlorides. They are usually made into fine hollow fibers, 93 [Lm outer diameter by 43 [Lm inner diameter. Some flat sheet is made for spirals. These membranes are widely used for seawater desalination and to some extent for other process applications. The hollow fibers are capable of veiy high-pressure operation and have considerably greater hydrolytic resistance than does CA. Their packing density in hoUow-fiber form makes them veiy susceptible to colloidal fouling (a permeator 8 inches in diameter contains 3 M fibers), and they have essentially no resistance to chlorine. 

RO membrane performance in the utility industry is a function of two major factors the membrane material and the configuration of the membrane module. Most utility applications use either spiral-wound or hollow-fiber elements. Hollow-fiber elements are particularly prone to fouling and, once fouled, are hard to clean. Thus, applications that employ these fibers require a great deal of pretreatment to remove all suspended and colloidal material in the feed stream. Spiral-wound modules (refer to Figure 50), due to their relative resistance to fouling, have a broader range of applications. A major advantage of the hollow-fiber modules, however, is the fact that they can pack 5000 ft of surface area in a 1 ft volume, while a spiral wound module can only contain 300 ftVff. 

The liquid distributor is the most important internal structure of a packed column. The distributor strongly influences packing efficiency. It must spread the liquid uniformly, resist plugging/fouling, provide free space for gas flow, and allow operating flexibility. 

Practical Aspects There are a number of process-specific concerns that are accounted for in good design. In regenerate systems, sorbents age, losing capacity because of fouling by heavy contaminants, loss of surface area or crystallinity, oxidation, and the like. Mass-transfer resistances may increase over time. Because of particle shape, size distribution, or column packing method,... 

The membrane shapes described are usually incorporated into compact commercial modules and cartridges. The four more common types of modules are (1) plate-and-frame, (2) spiral-wound, (3) tubular, and (4) hollow-fiber. Table 9.2 is a comparison of the characteristics of these four types of modules. The packing density refers to the surface area per unit volume of module, for which the hollow-fiber modules are clearly superior. However, hollow-fiber modules are highly susceptible to fouling and very difficult to clean. The spiral-wound module is very popular for most applications because of its low cost and reasonable resistance to fouling. 

Except in all but the simplest of examples, e.g. the removal of small particles form a loosely packed accumulation, the deposits will have a resistance to removal. With the passage of time the fouling layers may age that could increase the resistance to removal or facilitate re-entrainment. For instance over a period of... 

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