The reasons for the occurrence of tower flooding and flushing in the distillation tower
Release time:
2026-06-04
In the early stage of operation, the situation of the distillation tower was relatively stable, but in the middle and later stages of the distillation process, flooding and flushing occurred, causing the distillation to be unable to continue. During the entire distillation process, liquid gradually accumulates from a certain section and fills a portion of the tower, causing the rising vapor to encounter resistance and hindering the normal convective heat transfer between gas and liquid phases.
In the early stage of operation, the situation of the distillation tower was relatively stable, but in the middle and later stages of the distillation process, flooding and flushing occurred, causing the distillation to be unable to continue. During the entire distillation process, liquid gradually accumulates from a certain section and fills a portion of the tower, causing the rising vapor to encounter resistance and hindering the normal convective heat transfer between gas and liquid phases.
The temperature on the tower will gradually decrease, and the liquid level flowing back to the tank will also decrease; But the liquid level at the bottom of the tower and the working pressure have increased, which is essentially flooding the tower. There are two reasons that can cause similar problems in the distillation tower: on the one hand, the foundation settlement pipe is blocked; On the other hand, there is also a large amount of liquid in the distillation tower, which causes the downcomer to overload and operate.
To address the possible reasons, it is necessary not only to moderately reduce the feed rate and total reflux rate of the distillation tower, but also to eliminate common faults in the machinery and equipment before repairing the tower. In the operation process, when the gas efficient liquid phase load is too large, when the liquid fills all the downcomers, the left and right trays are connected, and the fractionation is damaged, resulting in tower flushing.
It is not difficult to see that the excessive load of high-efficiency liquid phase in the tower gas is also due to tower flushing. To solve the problem of distillation tower, it is important to reduce the gas-liquid load; Cut off the feed and turn off the bottom heating steam. After the temperature of each tray layer drops below the standard value, heat and feed again to restore the actual operation.
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