Mass Transfer Technology

Since 1997, AMT has continually worked to advance mass transfer technologies for petroleum refining, petrochemical, chemical and gas processing plants worldwide. 

Depending on your process, AMT can increase plant capacity by up to 40% for a modernization (revamp) project. Our ADV mass transfer technology allows an increase of plant throughput during the scheduled maintenance turn-around, which is usually two months or less. This is achieved through the following strategy:

  • Reuse of all existing fractionation columns and internal welded supports

  • No need to enlarge inlet vapor nozzle

  • No need for new foundation work or re-enforcement

  • No costly and time-consuming replacement of larger columns as in past practices

  • Rapid return on investment of the new mass transfer equipment investment, usually within one year

Among the many field-proven fractionation equipment designs are:

  • ADV® Pinnacle Performance Trays are AMT's patented high performance trays utilized in thousands of towers all over the world.

  • ADV®-MP High Capacity Tray introduced in 2001, a radically new innovation in the use of multi-pass (MP) trays that offers higher capacity and greater efficiency than the leading competitors in many applications.

  • ADV® ADE Tray for liquid – liquid extraction applications, replacing a packed extractor for removal of N-Compound from Iso-Octene C4 feed stream in 2004.

AMT's unique expertise, experience, knowledge and capability can meet client's demands for new plant construction, existing column debottlenecking and complete process plant modernization (revamping).

EXPERIMENTAL TESTING AND RESULTS

Extensive pilot testing has been performed to verify the design concept of the AMT ADV® tray. Pressure drop and liquid entrainment have been measured for the AMT ADV® and conventional (V-1) valve trays in two air/water simulators (12" and 24" diameter). The efficiency of AMT ADV® and V-1 trays were also determined for O2 desorption in the 24" simulator. One set of pilot test results are presented in the data sets below:

 
AMT ADV Lower Pressure Drop

PRESSURE DROP

As shown in the test results to the left, the pressure drop of the ADV® tray is approx. 20-25% lower than that of the V-1 tray at F-factor greater than 2.0 , (kg/m)1/2 s -1 

 

 

ENTRAINMENT

The comparison of entrainment for the AMT ADV® and V-1 trays are shown in the figure to the right. At F-factor greater than 2.0 (kg/m)1/2 s -1 , the entrainment of the AMT ADV® tray is substantially lower (over 30%) than that of V-1 tray. 
 

AMT ADV LESS ENTRAINMENT
 
AMT ADV HIGHER EFFICIENCY VALVE

EFFICIENCY

The figure to the left shows the efficiency vs. F-factor for the tested AMT ADV® and V-1 trays for O2 desorption in the 24" column. The efficiency of the ADV® tray is approx. 15% higher than that of the V-1 tray.