Holdup, Pressure Drop, and Flooding in Packed Countercurrent Columns for the Gas Extraction

The hydrodynamic behavior, i.e., flooding, liquid holdup, and pressure drop of countercurrent columns with two random packings, Raschig rings and Berl saddles, and two gauze packings, Sulzer CY and Sulzer EX, is scrutinized at temperatures between 313 and 373 K and pressures between 8 and 30 MPa using carbon dioxide as the supercritical solvent and water and olive oil deodorizer distillate as liquid phases. Two models are employed to correlate the experimental data: a sophisticated mechanistic approach based on the liquid holdup and a well-known empirical approach for the flooding point. The experimental data for the dry pressure drop and the liquid holdup below the loading point are successfully correlated using modified models from normal pressure operation. The flooding points can be correlated with good accuracy as well.