Scrubber Design Calculation Excel Best
Spray towers are hollow vessels with arrays of spray nozzles. They are simpler and have lower pressure drops than packed towers, making them suitable for high gas volumes and applications where pressure drop is a primary concern, like dust and particulate removal.
Venturi scrubbers are high-energy devices designed for particulate removal, particularly for sub-micron particles. The gas velocity in the narrow throat section typically ranges from 60 to 120 m/s (197–394 ft/s), creating intense shear forces that atomize the injected liquid into fine droplets. The collection mechanism relies primarily on inertial impaction: high-speed gas carries particles into liquid droplets, where they are captured.
HTU represents the efficiency of the chosen packing material. It can be calculated using the Onda Correlations, which factor in liquid and gas film mass transfer coefficients (
The engineering community is generous, and many professionals have shared their work. Here are some top-tier, free resources:
The choice of packing directly affects column sizing. Packing materials come in random shapes (e.g., Pall Rings, Raschig Rings, Saddles) or structured corrugated sheets. Every packing style has a specific , measured in ft-1f t to the negative 1 power m-1m to the negative 1 power Fpcap F sub p provides more surface area but increases pressure drop. Fpcap F sub p allows higher gas velocities but requires a taller column. scrubber design calculation excel best
Professional spreadsheets use a consistent color scheme: yellow cells for user inputs, blue or green for calculated results, and gray for fixed reference data. This approach, used in the Cheresources Packed Column Scrubber Design spreadsheet, makes your tool intuitive for other engineers to use.
Calculate (m³/m²·h):
Create a table for containing columns for Name, Size, Packing Factor ( Fpcap F sub p ), and Surface Area (
If absorption is concentrated (CO₂ in MEA, SO₂ in caustic), the NTU equation becomes implicit. Use with Enable Iterative Calculation (max iterations 1000, max change 0.0001). Spray towers are hollow vessels with arrays of spray nozzles
Before trusting your spreadsheet for live projects, validate its calculations against known cases. Input data from an existing scrubber and verify that the calculated diameter, pressure drop, and efficiency match actual performance data.
For any scrubber type, the diameter is fundamentally determined by the gas flow rate and the chosen superficial gas velocity:
Designing a Wet Scrubber: Engineering Principles and Excel Automation
Create a separate worksheet that stores packing characteristics for common packing types (e.g., 1″ Pall rings, 2″ Raschig rings, structured packing). Include packing factor, void fraction, surface area per volume, and pressure drop correlations. This allows the main calculation sheet to simply look up values by packing name. The gas velocity in the narrow throat section
While dedicated simulation software exists, Microsoft Excel remains the industry-standard tool for initial sizing, verification, and engineering estimation. A well-structured Excel spreadsheet allows engineers to quickly iterate variables like gas flow rates, contaminant concentrations, and packing types to find an optimal solution.
Lowering the target from 80% to 65% increases the vessel diameter, which reduces gas velocity and drops the pressure gradient. Reducing Excessive Column Height
To create the scrubber design calculator, you need a structured approach. Break your Excel workbook into the following, clearly labeled sheets: A. Input Data Sheet
Create a table with: | Packing Type | Material | Size (in) | Fp (ft²/ft³) | a (m²/m³) | ε (void fraction) | |--------------|----------|-----------|--------------|-----------|-------------------| | 1" Pall ring | PP | 1 | 56 | 207 | 0.92 | | 2" Intalox | Ceramic | 2 | 40 | 102 | 0.74 |