Measurements of the effective mass transfer areas for the gas–liquid rotating packed bed

Abstract

Rotating packed bed (RPB) is one of the most effective gas–liquid mass transfer enhancement reactors, its effective specific mass transfer area (ae) is critical to understand the mass transfer process. By using the NaOH–CO2 chemical absorption method, the ae values of three RPB reactors with different rotor sizes were measured under different operation conditions. The results showed that the high gravity factor and liquid flow rate were major affecting factors, while the gas flow rate exhibited minor influence. The radius of packing is the dominant equipment factor to affect ae value. The results indicated that the contact area depends on the dispersion of the liquid phase, thus the centrifugal force of rotating packed bed greatly influenced the ae value. Moreover, the measured ae/ap (effective specific mass transfer area/specific surface area of packing) values were fitted with dimensionless correlation formulas. The unified correlation formula with dimensionless bed size parameter can well predict the experimental data and the prediction errors were within 15%.