| 摘要 |
A cellular ceramic tower packing element. The tower packing element has an irregular, textured outer surface that provides a relatively large accessible surface area for the phase interaction of fluids. The tower packing elements are preferably spherical in shape and formed from cellular glass nodules that have a cellular core of a plurality of individual completely closed cells and a thin, continuous outer skin. The surface of the nodule is abraded or milled to remove the thin, continuous outer skin and a portion of the layer of underlying closed cells to rupture or open the individual cells in the layer beneath the outer skin. The inner surface of the opened and exposed cells form the exterior surface of the tower packing element and provide an irregular textured exterior surface with each exposed cell cavity forming a recessed portion or a micro-cup in the tower packing element exterior surface. The tower packing element, because of its cellular structure is relatively light in weight. The tower packing elements may be randomly packed in a tower to form a multiplicity of different types of passageways for the flow of fluids therethrough. The method of this invention contemplates treating cellular ceramic material by milling or abrading to expose the adjacent inner surfaces of the cell cavities to thereby enlarge or increase the accessible surface area of the tower packing element.
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