Investigations into the scale-up of laboratory distillation columns

The design of technical distillation columns will be increasingly based on test results obtained in laboratory columns. This is because engineers and scientists will in future be forced to do without expensive tests in semi-industrial columns for economic reasons. A prerequisite for the scale-up from laboratory to production scale is the use of calibrated laboratory columns with a variety of known parameters, such as efficiency, pressure drop, hold-up and heat loss as a function of their steam and liquid load. his contribution will first look into the problem of selecting suitable laboratory columns. We will then give the reasons for our decision to choose the DN50 bubble-cap column from NORMAG and the DN50 packed column with Rombopak 9M from KUHNI. This will be followed by a few explanations of how reproducible test measurements can be taken and by a discussion of the requirements in selecting the test mixtures, setting up the test equipment, taking the measurements and evaluating them. inally, the results of test measurements in the laboratory columns will be presented with regard to column efficiency and pressure drop under varying steam loads and pressures.