Design of Wire Mesh Mist Eliminators

Knitted wire mesh mist eliminators are used extensively in many industrial plants. Their widespread application is essentially due to the low cost and efficient removal of entrained liquid droplets from vapor and gas streams. Despite the broad range of entrainment removal applications, open literature on this topic is limited. All the available design relations are based on semiempirical equations with an uncertain range of application. In this work, a set of new experimental data was obtained by investigating the performances of commercial eliminators, and a mechanistic model is presented. Comparison between experimental data and the proposed model shows that it can be used to predict separation efficiency both for horizontal and vertical arrangements.