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Bubble Cap Trays Demonstration
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Bubble Cap Trays Demonstration

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This section discusses the bubble cap tray, its design, advantages, drawbacks, and applications in the distillation process.

Bubble Cap Tray Design

  • The bubble cap tray was widely used in the 1940s and early 1950s for distillation.
  • It consists of a riser with a cap on top where vapor flows through the riser and around the cap to contact the liquid on the tray.

Advantages of Bubble Cap Tray

  • Provides positive assurance of total vapor-liquid contacting without bypassing vapor.

Drawbacks of Bubble Cap Tray

  • Complex cap design obstructs liquid flow, especially in high liquid loaded towers.
  • Significant pressure drop occurs in the reversal area between the riser and cap, reducing mass transfer efficiency.

Cost and Application Considerations

  • Labor-intensive assembly makes bubble cap trays more expensive.
  • Weight of units leads to support issues on large towers, limiting new applications to services requiring a large amount of vapor to contact a small liquid volume.
Video description

Bubble Cap Trays feature a riser with a cap on top, allowing the vapor to flow through the rise and around the cap, coming into contact with the liquid as it flows across the tray. To learn more about Bubble Cap Trays and other distillation trays, please visit AIChE’s Distillation in Practice course, www.aiche.org/ela112