fluXXion b.v. - Equipment and Devices

In general the industry applies conventional tray and packed separation columns for distillation and stripping for already decades. Many different types of columns have been designed over the years to improve efficiency in required space and energy consumption. However all those technologies suffer equally from the same inefficient molecular transfer and high heating and cooling requirements. As a consequence, highly inflexible bulky process installations, requiring high investment and energy costs result. According to estimates about 40 % of energy involved in refinery and other continuous chemical processes is consumed in distillation and therefore significant energy savings could be realized here.

Use of membrane type contactors is well known and tried. The concept of a more intense gas-liquid contact is well proven with mesh type and e.g. hollow fibre membrane contactors. However these all suffer from a variety of impracticalities such as:

No homogenous pore size, effectively making the larges pore determining the performance
Long pore length in relation to pore size, reducing diffusion time significantly
Large pores, requiring minimal, not operable pressure drop differentials between the gas and the liquid side
Material incompatibility with operating conditions e.g. swelling, temperature and chemical resistance and connection issues
Low manufacturing reproducibility

The application of fluXXion’s High Efficiency Contactor(HEC) plate technology in combination with micro channel technology of Bayer Technology Services and Ehrfeld Microtechnik BTS is unique in the world and will lead to much more compact separation installations and a significant reduction in energy requirements.

fluXXion’s mass transfer contactor plates are unique in:

Fully identical holes, adjustable between 0.35 and 1 micron
Very short pore length
High chemical resistance
High manufacturing reproducibility

The application of the technology will reduce the molecular transport time by 3 to 4 orders of magnitude!! With the correct design this technology will improve the current separation technology on all aspects:

reduced total cost of ownership,
reduced energy use,
much smaller and more compact installations
a potential for higher separation quality.

The use of HEC contactors reduces the size of these installations considerably, saves on investment and energy costs and offer a high flexibility with respect to scaling up or scaling down new and existing installations. The technology can be applied in a wide range of applications:

applications