Additive Fertigung in der thermischen Trenntechnik: Entwicklung skalierbarer Destillationskolonnen für den Labormaßstab

Distillation is the most important thermal separation process, accounting for about 3 % of the world's energy demand. In the chemical industry, distillation processes are often realized in packed columns. In many cases their large-scale implementation is based on preliminary experimental investigations in laboratory-scale test columns, especially if new chemicals are involved or when particularly complex processes are to be realized. According to the state of the art, laboratory columns with a diameter of 50 mm are used for the scale-up process to generate reliable measurement data. Packings with particularly advantageous scalability properties should be used. In the context of this work, the term scalability describes a separation efficiency of a packing that is independent of the gas load and thus constant. Furthermore, the generation of reliable, reproducible mass transfer measurement data is of great importance. In principle, however, packed columns with greatly reduced diameters <50 mm with the same or improved scalability properties lead to a strong increase in time and cost efficiency during process development and scale-up. On the one hand, miniaturized columns can be operated with a much smaller amount of chemicals, minimizing safety requirements and the time and associated costs of (often multi-step) syntheses of toxic and/or expensive chemicals. On the other hand, the size of the plant is reduced, minimizing investment costs and space requirements. However, the wall-to-packing ratio increases with miniaturization, so that effects that are disadvantageous for scale-up, such as the wall flow of the liquid phase and heat losses via the column wall, are intensified. In this case, reliable scale-up of packed columns is no longer possible. The objective of this work is the development of a miniaturized, scalable packed column for distillation. The target parameters are a reduced packing diameter of 20 mm, high separation efficiency independent of gas loads for typical laboratory operating ranges between ...