Used (Second Hand) Fractional Distillation Columns / Towers

Fractional distillation is the most common industrial separation process. Because distillation uses significant energy for both heating and cooling, it can account for half or more of a particular plant's entire operating costs. It's important to save on the capital equipment of a new distillation plant or an expansion project. Buying previously owned, aka used or second hand, distillation columns saves capital.

Another reason to consider buying used or second hand distillation columns is that the most effective ways to reduce distillation operating costs are through process optimization and control techniques, such as measuring differential pressure, not by buying newly manufactured columns.

IPP stocks 4 types of columns:

1. Plate or Tray Columns - commonly used as absorption columns, rectification columns, reflux columns, stripping columns and splitting columns. Contain series of trays or plates. Types of tray columns stocked include sieve tray, valve tray, ballast tray and bubble-cap columns. Prior uses include methanol recovery in PTA, plastic and formaldehyde plants, dehydration in plastic and glycol/glycerin plants, NOx abatement and organic compound stripping among others.
2. Packed Columns - like tray columns are used for absorption, rectification, stripping plus humidification, dehumidification/dehydration and as fractional distillation columns. Packed bed columns are also found in other separation processes like removing dust, mist and odors. The tower packing varies in material, shape and design depending on the application and includes random packing and structured packing designs. Prior uses include distilling phenol columns at BPA plants,
3. Contactor Columns - Commonly used as extraction columns for viscous or fouling materials. Feature agitator drives on top of the column to disburse one liquid into another.
4. Glass Lined Columns - packed bed columns designed for highly corrosive and reactive environments such as plants using or producing acids like HCl, acetic and nitric acid. Glass columns are frequently used as absorption, stripping, extraction and fractional distillation columns. IPP has glass distillation columns from premier glass-lined equipment OEMs like De Dietrich and Pfaudler.

IPP's stock of fractionation columns were used in a wide array of applications such as solvent recovery columns in Benzene, Toulene, Styrene, VCM plants, purification columns and light alcohol distillation columns in specialty chemical plants, steam stripping columns in the agrichemical/fertilizer industry at ammonia, urea, and di-methyl amine (DMA) plants, in VOC scrubbing systems for removing unreacted olefins and hydrocarbons found at PET plants and high vacuum batch distillation processes among others.