Patent ID: 6631890
Filing Date: 2003-10-14
Classification: B01J,Y10S

Abstract:
A method of effecting gas/liquid contacting in a column, comprisingintroducing a liquid stream into an upper end of a column and flowing said liquid stream downwardly through a packed bed of packing elements in the column; introducing a gas stream into a lower end of the column and flowing said gas stream upwardly through the packed bed of packing elements in the column for countercurrent contact with the liquid stream; wherein each packing element is composed of a spherical cage which contains a low apparent bulk density, high surface area, packing body, each spherical cage having sufficient crush resistance to prevent the packing body contained within the cage from being crushed by the weight of the packing bodies and liquid holdup in the column, and a plurality of said packing elements are dumped randomly and evenly into said column to form the packed bed.