Experimental investigation of heat transfer in a horizontal tube falling film absorber with aqueous solutions of LiBr with and without surfactants

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To learn about the physical background of the absorption process, the accompanying heat transfer was studied experimentally. A horizontal tube heat exchanger, similar to commercial absorbers, was built. Two different types of tubes were tested, one with a plain, the other with a knurled surface. The solution volume flow, the temperatures of the cooling water and of the solution, and the concentration of the solution were varied to search for correlations of the heat-transfer coefficient with the physical properties of the solution. The heat-transfer coefficients decrease with increasing viscosity and augmenting surface tension. They also depend on the fluid regime of the solution film, i.e. they increase with growing solution volume flow. The influence of two surfactants — 1-octanol and 2-ethyl-1-hexanol in various concentrations — on the absorption process was examined quantitatively. An increase of 60–140% was measured for the heat-transfer coe coefficients.