A novel internal made of several structured porous passages can eliminate excessive pressure drop and "flooding" in a packed column with conventional gas liquid counter-current flow. A pressure drop model is developed on the assumption that the internal part divides the gas flow into two branches, one of which contacts the liquid in a conventional counter-current flow and the other in a new cross current flow. The model shows that the gas velocity for counter-current flow in a column with these internal parts of 15-30% volume fraction is about 5-30% of that without the internal parts and more gas flows in the cross current pattern. Decreases in the gas velocity and liquid hold-up make the pressure drop low. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.