Processes requiring intimate contact between gases and liquids are usually carried out in packed columns. These columns can be huge and expensive but hit a barrier called the flood point which limits the throughput of the gases and liquids.
We have developed a new kind of contactor that overcomes the flood point limit. This contactor can process twice the gas volume rate at half the pressure drop in the same diameter vessel.
Technology
The technology is based on generating unbroken sheets of liquid in the shape of multiple blades or helices, emitted from a central rotating slotted tube. The sheets act effectively as a fan to drive the gas through the contactor between the closely spaced liquid sheets.
Column diameters of approximately 1 meter have been successfully tested at pilot scale with gas-liquid contact surface areas matching that of equivalent packing materials.
The RLS contactor can be designed to deliver operating savings in other conventional chemical processes. The design reduces the size of the column and eliminates the column packing, which enables an overall capital cost reduction of approximately 30 per cent and a power consumption reduction of an estimated 25 per cent compared to a conventional gas/liquid contactor.
Applications
The RLS field of application is vast – anywhere that requires the transfer of chemical components between gas and liquid streams at high rates and low pressure drop.
Examples include:
- flue gas clean-up
- waste-water treatment
- distillation
- solar cooling
- chemical reaction between gases and liquids.
Intellectual property
CSIRO patent in several countries. In-house design and operational know-how.
The team
Our team consists of engineers and multi-skilled trades people with more than 30 years experience in theoretical, modelling and practical application of the technology.