Investigating the Effect of Replacing Modern High Effective Random Packings on Natural Gas Purification

This investigation attempts to evaluate and compare the effect of packing type on the mass transfer and pressure drop along the gas sweetening absorption column. To this aim, modern packings such as Super Ring, Ralu Ring, Ralu Flow and the second-generation packing (Pall Ring), have been used in simulated columns by using of Aspen HYSYS modeling software. Flooding calculation is made possible by linking Aspen HYSYS with MATLAB programing. The selected models validity is checked by comparison to empirical data from a real gas plant. It should be noted that empirical data is available just for second-generation packing. Comparison of these packings performance shows that Super Rings provide low pressure drop, Ralu Rings lead to high mass transfer and Ralu Flow packings can provide high mass transfer and low pressure drop in absorption columns. According to results, the capacity of gas treatment units can be significantly increased by replacing Pall Ring with Ralu Flow.