As rightly said, Liquid Liquid separation is often termed as a “Black Box” in the industry, as, accurately predicting BS&W and the efficiency of “continuous in dispersed” has always remained questionable . Whether engineering a new Coalescer vessel, or debottlenecking an existing separator, full knowledge and understanding of the basic principles involved are required and the design should be treated as a system design rather than an equipment design, as, neglecting the fundamental principle may result into inadequate performance. Often overlooked are the capabilities of properly selected and designed internals for the enhancement of simple gravity separation, location of coalescing equipment’s due to mechanical constraints, residence time as the length needs to as short as possible, velocities of continuous & dispersed phase as the diameters are fixed, potential of fouling due to presence of solid, inversion point etc etc. The presentation will cover basic design philosophies involved in properly designing a liquid liquid separation vessel along with some case studies.
