A High Capacity Re-Tray That Wasn't - a Practical Lesson in Counter-Intuitive Thinking

A plant upgrade project involving a partial column re-tray produced an unexpected result, with actually a performance deficit afterwards.  This study details the practical thinking and application of fundamental ideas of tray flooding employed to understand the root cause of the problem and the simple fix used to return the column to acceptable operation. The lesson from this experience also led to a more fundamental and generally applicable moral for distillation practioners everywhere.