(85c) Mass Transfer Characterization of Structured and Random Packings

Packing is widely used in distillation as well as post-combustion CO₂ capture because of its low pressure drop, good mass transfer efficiency, and ease of installation. In the CO₂ capture process, absorber and stripper performance are highly dependent on the effective mass transfer area of the packing (a_e). The stripper performance also depends on the liquid film mass transfer coefficient (k_L). Gas cooler and water wash performance depends on the gas film mass transfer coefficient (k_G). Our research is focused on consistent measurement and mechanistic model development to predict these important fundamental packing design parameters.

Five structured packings of various surface areas, corrugation angles and surface treatment and four high performance random packings of various nominal sizes have been studied using a 0.428 m diameter PVC column. The experimental results obtained in this work will be presented and compared with published data.

The purpose of this research is to work out generalized correlations for the prediction of the effective mass transfer area (a_e), liquid and gas film mass transfer coefficients for novel packings, which is highly needed in packed column designs. The generalized correlations will be based on consistent measurement in this work as well as published data.