Insights Into Thermal Transactions of a Novel Rotating Packed Bed

Abstract

Abstract The field of the rotating packed bed (RPB) and its applications in the transfer processes are multidisciplinary in nature. The achievement of significant volume reduction by employing the RPB in distillation towers has been fairly established in the mass transfer domain. Nevertheless, the prospect of RPB in the heat transfer domain still remains dormant. The current work addresses this very issue by exploring the characteristics of thermal transactions across the novel RPB device. This study succinctly presents the related aspects with multi-phase flow of participating fluids in the counter-current direction across the porous, rotating packed bed structure. However, the simultaneous involvement of these multivariate intrinsic attributes makes the understanding of the transfer phenomenon quite complex upon viewing from the experimental perspective alone. Hence, the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) tool has been used for the assimilation of the physical understanding of the thermal transactions along with the effects of operating parameters. The thermal contours, main effect, and surface plots for heat transfer rate directly contribute toward a better appreciation of the thermal transaction mechanism and could be employed for suitable volume reduction in heat exchanger devices.