Numerical simulation and an innovative design of the inlet gas distributor in an industrial adsorption tower

Gas distributor plays an important role in operation performance of gas-solid and gas-liquid reactions and separation processes. In this work, computational fluid dynamics method was used to simulate the gas distribution of the inlet gas distributor in an industrial pressure swing adsorption tower. The employed model has been validated with available empirical formula. The simulation results show that the industrial perforated plate gas distributor brings a strong flow along the elliptical head wall and large vortexes. It shows bad gas distribution performance. Therefore, a conical shell gas distributor is proposed. Its structural parameters, such as cone angle and hole distribution are optimized. The optimal cone angle is 166 degrees. Furthermore, an imperforated area with a diameter of 290 mm is necessary to decrease the gas velocity at the center area. The optimal distributor can effectively weaken the large vortexes above the distributor and the high gas velocity at axial center. Compared with the industrial distributor, the inhomogeneity index M of the gas distribution is decreased from 5.61 to 2.48, and the pressure drop Delta P of the distributor is decreased from 59.3 Pa to 46.0 Pa. In addition, the designed distributor is also suitable for towers with larger diameters.