SCI和EI收录∣中国化工学会会刊

Chin.J.Chem.Eng. ›› 2018, Vol. 26 ›› Issue (3): 484-493.DOI: 10.1016/j.cjche.2017.11.005

• Separation Science and Engineering • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Investigation on a vertical radial flow adsorber designed by a novel parallel connection method

Zhengshu Dai1, Meng Yu2, Daozhe Rui2, Xuejun Zhang2, Yang Zhao2   

  1. 1 School of Energy and Power Engineering, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China;
    2 Key Laboratory of Refrigeration and Cryogenic Technology of Zhejiang Province, Institute of Refrigeration and Cryogenics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China
  • Received:2017-04-26 Revised:2017-11-10 Online:2018-04-18 Published:2018-03-28
  • Contact: Xuejun Zhang
  • Supported by:

    Supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2017YFB0603702), the Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province (Y15E060014), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51636007), and Shanghai Young Teachers Development Program (10-16-301-801).

Investigation on a vertical radial flow adsorber designed by a novel parallel connection method

Zhengshu Dai1, Meng Yu2, Daozhe Rui2, Xuejun Zhang2, Yang Zhao2   

  1. 1 School of Energy and Power Engineering, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China;
    2 Key Laboratory of Refrigeration and Cryogenic Technology of Zhejiang Province, Institute of Refrigeration and Cryogenics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China
  • 通讯作者: Xuejun Zhang
  • 基金资助:

    Supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2017YFB0603702), the Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province (Y15E060014), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51636007), and Shanghai Young Teachers Development Program (10-16-301-801).

Abstract: Due to the increasing global demand for industrial gas, the development of large-scale cryogenic air separation systems has attracted considerable attention in recent years. Increasing the height of the adsorption bed in a vertical radial flow adsorber used in cryogenic air separation systems may efficiently increase the treatment capacity of the air in the adsorber. However, uniformity of the flow distribution of the air inside the adsorber would be deteriorated using the height-increasing method. In order to reduce the non-uniformity of the flow distribution caused by the excessive height of adsorption bed in a vertical radial flow adsorber, a novel parallel connection method is proposed in the present work. The experimental apparatus is designed and constructed; the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) technique is used to develop a CFD-based model, which is used to analyze the flow distribution, the static pressure drop and the radial velocity in the newly designed adsorber. In addition, the geometric parameters of annular flow channels and the adsorption bed thickness of the upper unit in the parallelconnected vertical radial flow adsorber are optimized, so that the upper and lower adsorption units could be penetrated by air simultaneously. Comparisons are made between the height-increasing method and the parallel connection method with the same adsorber height. It is shown that using the parallel connection method could reduce the difference between the maximum and minimum radial static pressure drop by 86.2% and improve the uniformity by 80% compared with those of using the height-increasing method. The optimal thickness ratio of the upper and lower adsorption units is obtained as 0.966, in which case the upper and lower adsorption units could be penetrated by air simultaneously, so that the adsorbents in adsorption space could be used more efficiently.

Key words: Air separation, Purification, Vertical radial flow adsorber, Flow distribution, Optimization

摘要: Due to the increasing global demand for industrial gas, the development of large-scale cryogenic air separation systems has attracted considerable attention in recent years. Increasing the height of the adsorption bed in a vertical radial flow adsorber used in cryogenic air separation systems may efficiently increase the treatment capacity of the air in the adsorber. However, uniformity of the flow distribution of the air inside the adsorber would be deteriorated using the height-increasing method. In order to reduce the non-uniformity of the flow distribution caused by the excessive height of adsorption bed in a vertical radial flow adsorber, a novel parallel connection method is proposed in the present work. The experimental apparatus is designed and constructed; the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) technique is used to develop a CFD-based model, which is used to analyze the flow distribution, the static pressure drop and the radial velocity in the newly designed adsorber. In addition, the geometric parameters of annular flow channels and the adsorption bed thickness of the upper unit in the parallelconnected vertical radial flow adsorber are optimized, so that the upper and lower adsorption units could be penetrated by air simultaneously. Comparisons are made between the height-increasing method and the parallel connection method with the same adsorber height. It is shown that using the parallel connection method could reduce the difference between the maximum and minimum radial static pressure drop by 86.2% and improve the uniformity by 80% compared with those of using the height-increasing method. The optimal thickness ratio of the upper and lower adsorption units is obtained as 0.966, in which case the upper and lower adsorption units could be penetrated by air simultaneously, so that the adsorbents in adsorption space could be used more efficiently.

关键词: Air separation, Purification, Vertical radial flow adsorber, Flow distribution, Optimization