Method for producing a sintered porous body

Abstract

A shaped sintered fibrous porous body exhibits a structure with a three-dimensional corrugated or undulating shape and porosity. The structure includes inorganic fibers joined as a sintered structure and is produced in one embodiment by: dispersing and suspending a fiber mixture including inorganic fibers and organic binder, such as cellulose fibers, or other organic compounds, in a liquid to form a fibrous slurry; forming a body including the fiber mixture by depositing the slurry on a shaped screen to thereby shape the fibrous body to a three-dimensional configuration simultaneously with the formation of the body; removing at least a part of the liquid from the fibrous body through the screen by a vacuum; drying the fibrous body in the ambient atmosphere or in a furnace; heating the dried fibrous body to a first elevated temperature where the organic binder is removed from the body; subsequently heating the dried body to a second elevated temperature where the inorganic fibers are partly fused to form a sintered porous fibrous body with a three-dimensional corrugated or undulating configuration. The body is suitable for use as or included in reactor elements to provide gas/condensed phase mass transfer areas in a system involving processing or teatment of gases and/or vapors through distillation, absorption and/or catalytic reactions or the like requiring gas/condensed phase mass transfer, The body is also for enhancing fluid-catalyst mass transfer at low pressure drop and contacting between fluids or combinations thereof in single phase catalytic reactors.