Apparatus for distribution separation processes

A packing which comprises a porous structure having essentially the texture of an open foam composed essentially of interleading pores and skeletal surfaces outlining the pores, the porous structure in cross-section extending essentially continuously, uniformly and at least predominantly coherently across its entire three dimensions;

• wherein said porous structure is assembled by stacking a plurality of porous integral panels in which said texture repeatedly recurs in the two larger dimensions of each panel;
• wherein the faces of each panel are formed essentially by a plurality of depressions, adjoining depressions of opposite panel faces being interleading when said panels are stacked, and adjoining depressions of the same panel face also being interleading when said panels are stacked;
• the shape of each depression being concave facing inward toward the adjoining depressions of the opposite panel;
• wherein said adjoining opposed depressions form said pores when the panels are stacked;
• and
• wherein said depressions are arranged in a pattern essentially corresponding to the geometrical pattern of the peripheries of densely packed spheres;
• whereby each of said pores formed by the opposed concave depressions is in interleading communication with each of the pores which immediately surround it;
• said communication being by means of passages between said pores;
• and said passages being located on the surface of each pore essentially at the corresponding points at which the surrounding spheres would contact each central sphere in a densely packed sphere geomtry.