High-energy laser surface processing for industrial column packing

A method of improving surface area contact between a liquid and a vapor in an industrial packing column, the method comprising:

• ablating packing material by a laser to create surface structures on a surface of the packing material to create an ablated packing material, the surface structures selected from a set consisting of nano-sized channels and micro-sized channels,
• wherein the surface structures comprise irregular channels having varying widths and depths, increasing a surface area of the packing material;
• randomly providing the ablated packing material in a column packing tower;
• providing a fluid mixture comprising an unwanted material in a liquid phase into the column packing tower above the ablated packing material;
• providing a gas from below the high-surface area ablated packing material;
• removing the unwanted material from the liquid phase by absorbing the unwanted material into the gas at a contact area between the liquid phase and the gas at the surface structures on the surface of the ablated packing material;
• extracting the unwanted material from the gas;
• and
• venting the gas from the column packing tower.