Experimental Studies on the Effect of Liquid Flow Rate on Pressure Drop in Rotating Packed Bed (RPB)

Abstract

AbstractRotating packed bed has been a device of wide application and is mainly used for process intensification of the mass transfer of gas-liquid processes in chemical and processing industries. It substantially reduces the size of the separation and distillation towers by replacing gravitational force with a much higher centrifugal force. However, the work related to its uses in thermal systems for heat transfer enhancement is still absent in open literature. This technology can also be used in heat transfer systems replacing cooling towers with rotating packed bed for reducing their size and enhancing the heat transfer rates. In the present work, the effect of rate of liquid flow on the characteristics of drop in air side pressure of counter-current flow RPB with a continuous multiphase air-water system has been experimentally investigated. The pressure drop was observed at different operating parameters which include rate of gas flow, rotor speed and rate of liquid flow. The experimental results have been reported for the drop in pressure of both dry and irrigated bed. In case of irrigated bed, the drop in pressure was substantially lesser in comparison to dry bed for most of the observations with a maximum reduction of 18.25% at a particular operating condition. The results obtained can further be used for the optimization of operating parameters.KeywordsRotating packed bedPressure dropGas flowrateLiquid flowrateRotational speed