Locally co current horizontally staged contact tray

Abstract

A vapor-liquid tray is provided which achieves markedly higher vapor loading and tray efficiency at all liquid loadings, and with little or no increase in pressure drop. Vapor loading is increased via a multiplicity of locally co-current liquid recirculating compartments, preferably with diagonal structure producing diagonal co-currency. Tray efficiency is increased by highly effective horizontal staging via a convergent-divergent liquid flowpath, preferably with structurally integrated tray downcomers. The advantageous features are also applicable individually. Referring to FIG. 16, symmetric tray partitions 1602 separate the active area of tray 1601 into a central section and two peripheral sections. The peripheral sections have tray downcomers 1615 and tray weirs 1617. The central section tray weir is 1632. Compartment partitions 1613 divide the liquid flowpaths into multiple compartments, each having compartment weir 1613 with liquid recirculation passages 1633.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.