Hydrodynamic and mass transfer in a new co-current two-phase flow gas–liquid contactor

Abstract

This work presents hydrodynamic and mass transfer performances of a new gas–liquid reactor, named CoReC. Compared to conventional gas–liquid contactors with a gas continuous phase like packed towers (PT), the CoReC presents the advantage to be a small sized device. Experiments were carried out to quantify pressure drop ΔP, volumetric interfacial area a, and liquid side mass transfer coefficients (kLa and kL) for superficial gas and liquid velocities varying from 5.6 to 28 m s−1 and 0.016 to 0.055 m s−1, respectively. Different flow configurations (vertical upward (VU), vertical downward (VD) and horizontal (H)) were tested. The results were compared to a previous study lead on Lightnin SM. Pressure drop ΔP inside the CoReC, ranging from 500 up to 20,000 Pa m−1, was found lower than the one generated by classical SM. Volumetric interfacial area a and mass transfer coefficient kLa, respectively reaching values of 2800 m2 m−3 and 0.22 s−1, were found higher than those encountered in SM, and far better than those measured in PT. Moreover, it has been shown that the flow configuration is an important parameter to take into account. VD configuration appeared to be the most economically acceptable with advantageous interfacial areas, high mass transfer coefficients and the lowest pressure drops if compared to VU and H configurations.