Packed columns for absorption process. An economic analysis

In the last few years an increasing number of restrictions have been introduced to limit pollutant emissions into the environment and, on the other hand, industry requires internals that reduce both operating costs and dimensions of absorption columns. In the present work an economic analysis on column packings has been performed. The results show that structured packings can save energy and significantly reduce the operating and investment costs by offering reduced values of pressure drops per theoretical stage in comparison to conventional dumped packing.