Disclosed is a packing made up of a stack of plates, having been shaped to form corrugations in the plate and assembled to form a cross-corrugated packing block for a mass and/or heat transfer application, wherein the material of the packing plates is an open-pore metal foam, and in that the specific surface area of the packing is greater than 500 m2/m3 and in that the thickness (e) of the plate is less than 2 mm before the shaping operation.

The present invention relates to a mass transfer tray comprising a bottom plate, at least one gas transmission part and a liquid transmission part, wherein the mass transfer tray has at least one valve located in the liquid transmission part, relates to use of a mass transfer tray of the present invention in liquid separation process, relates to a column comprising the trays of the present invention, and relates to a thermal separation process, comprising performing thermal separation within the column of the present invention.

A chemical reactor for inductive heating has a non-conductive reactor wall (104) defining an interior (106) of the reactor, a conductive electromagnetic metamaterial susceptor (102) having an open cell 3D lattice structure distributed throughout a volumetric region within the interior of the reactor, electromagnetic coils (100) surrounding the susceptor, and a power supply (116) connected to the electromagnetic coils and adapted to produce AC electrical power at a predetermined operating frequency, thereby generating an electromagnetic field having a predetermined wavelength causing inductive heating of the susceptor. The susceptor has a predetermined effective AC conductivity response Gefr as a predetermined function of position within the volumetric region at the predetermined operating frequency.

A structured packing bed for a column is provided. The structured packing bed comprises at least two layers stacked vertically above each other, and at least two of the layers each comprise at least one structured cross-channel packing element having a specific surface area of 60 to 500 m.sup.2/m.sup.3 and a height of 50 to less than 150 mm. At least 50% of the structured cross-channel packing elements are a block comprising a plurality of sheets with periodic deformations. The sheets are arranged in a longitudinal direction parallel and in touching contact with each other such that an open space is provided between them. Adjacent sheets are oriented such that their deformations intersect in crisscross fashion with each other, and a structured cross-channel packing element of a layer is rotated with regard to a structured cross-channel packing element of an adjacent layer by 70 to 110.

A high capacity and high efficiency vapor-liquid contacting apparatus and process is useful in distillation columns and other vapor-liquid contacting processes. The apparatus is characterized by a half module comprising a downcomer against a shell of a vessel for transporting liquid to a subjacent stage which utilizes a demister to effect vapor-liquid separation at the downcomer outlet.

In some embodiments, a reactor and/or related may generate pressurized hydrogen within an internal volume by combining water and a water reactive material. In some embodiments, the reactor may include a flexible porous membrane configured to contain water reactive material disposed in an internal volume. In some embodiments, the reactor may include a support configured to support a water reactive material in an internal volume.

A sparging evaporator for an inerting system including an outer vessel, an inner vessel within the outer vessel, and a plenum formed between the inner and outer vessels. The outer vessel includes a gas inlet for receiving inlet gas into the plenum, and a liquid inlet for receiving liquid fuel into the plenum. The inlet gas in the plenum generates a gas pressure that is exerted against a free surface of the liquid fuel in the plenum thereby forcing the liquid fuel and the inlet gas through an inlet of the inner vessel. The inner vessel contains a lattice structure that promotes liberation of fuel vapor from the liquid fuel and enables the inlet gas in the liquid fuel to sparge the fuel vapor in the liquid fuel, thereby forming a fuel-enriched gas mixture that can be fed to a reactor of the inerting system.