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Mass transfer performance of metal sheet structured packings in CO2

absorption tower

Article · October 2013

DOI: 10.3969/j.issn.1005-9954.2013.10.004

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CJCHE-00117; No of Pages 8
Chinese Journal of Chemical Engineering xxx (2014) xxx–xxx

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Chinese Journal of Chemical Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/CJCHE

Separation Science and Engineering

Mass Transfer Performance of Structured Packings in a CO2 Absorption Tower☆

Wei Yang 1,2, Xiaodan Yu 3, Jianguo Mi 2, Wanfu Wang 3, Jian Chen 1,⁎
1
State Key laboratory of Chemical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
2
State Key Laboratory of Organic–Inorganic Composites, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing 100029, China
3
CNPC Research Institute of Safety & Environment Technology, Beijing 102206, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This paper studies the mass transfer performance of structured packings in the absorption of CO2 from air with
Received 9 April 2013 aqueous NaOH solution. The Eight structured packings tested are sheet metal ones with corrugations of different
Received in revised form 8 August 2013 geometry parameters. Effective mass transfer area and overall gas phase mass transfer coefficient have been
Accepted 12 December 2013
measured in an absorption column of 200 mm diameter under the conditions of gas F-factor in 0.38–1.52 Pa0.5
Available online xxxx
and aqueous NaOH solution concentration of 0.10–0.15 kmol·m−3. The effects of gas/liquid phase flow rates
Keywords:
and packing geometry parameters are also investigated. The results show that the effective mass transfer area
Separation changes not only with packing geometry parameters and liquid load, but also with gas F-factor. A new effective
Absorption mass transfer area correlation on the gas F-factor and the liquid load was proposed, which is found to fit
Mass transfer experiment data very well.
Packed bed © 2014 Chemical Industry and Engineering Society of China, and Chemical Industry Press. All rights reserved.
Structured packing
Carbon dioxide

1. Introduction
At present, global extreme weather occurs frequently. Various natu-
ral disasters threat gravely the human survival and development. All
these are related to the climate change which is caused by greenhouse
gas emission, especially CO2 emission [1]. Reducing CO2 and fighting
against climate change have already become global consensus.
There are three main ways to reduce CO2. The first is the control
from the source. It can reduce CO2 and even achieve zero emission
when developing clean energy and renewable energy [2]. The second
is the control during the process. Improving the energy efficiency can
reduce energy consumption and thus CO2 [3], which has great potential
in practical engineering applications. The third is the control at the end.
Currently CO2 capture and storage (CCS) is the most directive and most
effective way at the end of process [4–6].
CCS is of wide concern, but high cost and high energy consumption
are the main bottlenecks of CCS [7,8]. Researchers have done much
work, and most work is focused on solvents and process simulation
[9–14]. Some research works about packings used for CO2 absorption
has been done. Aroonwilas et al. [15] researched about different
☆ Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51134017) and
PetroChina (2011E-24-09).
⁎ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: cj-dce@tsinghua.edu.cn (J. Chen).
commercial packings. Alix et al. [16] proposed a new structured packing
which generated a low pressure drop and a very high interfacial area.
Mass transfer performance of packings was often evaluated by using
the systems including air–H2O–CO2 [17], air–H2O–O2 [18] and air–H2O–
NH3 [19], where only mass transfer process proceeds and no reaction
occurs. In 2000, the model for predicting structured packing mass trans-
fer performance in CO2 chemical absorption was proposed [14]. Later,
the effects of operating parameters on CO2 absorption in columns with
structured packings were obtained by using CO2–MEA system [15],
and the effective mass transfer area of random packings (Raschig
super-rings) was studied with CO2–NaOH system [20].
In comparison with random packings, structured packings are
made of thin corrugated metal sheets arranged side by side with
an opposing channel orientation [14], which offer excellent mass
transfer performance with a lower pressure drop [21]. Their specific
area is up to 250–750 m2/m3 with a void fraction of 90%. There are
many kinds of commercial structured packings such as Gempak,
Mellapak and Optifow.
The main objective of this study is to shed light on selection
or development of a new structured packing used for CO2 chemical
absorption with a high efficiency. In this study, the effective mass
transfer area and overall gas phase mass transfer coefficient of
sheet metal structured packings with corrugations of different pack-
ing geometry parameters were measured. All of the data were ana-
lyzed with respect to designing high efficient packing suitable for
CO2 chemical absorption.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cjche.2014.10.003
1004-9541/© 2014 Chemical Industry and Engineering Society of China, and Chemical Industry Press. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article as: W. Yang, et al., X. Yu, Mass Transfer Performance of Structured Packings in a CO2 Absorption Tower, Chin. J. Chem. Eng.
(2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cjche.2014.10.003
2 W. Yang et al. / Chinese Journal of Chemical Engineering xxx (2014) xxx–xxx

2. Mathematical Model Henry's constant (HA) for CO2 in aqueous electrolyte solution could
be determined by [23]:
According to two-film theory, the interface mass transfer rate is
1 X
NA ¼ K G P ðyA −ye Þ: ð1Þ lg ¼− I c hi ð13Þ
Hw HA
The material conservation equation for the absorbed amount can be
written as
hi ¼ hþ þ h− þ hgas ð14Þ
−Gdy ¼ K G Ae P ðyA −ye ÞdZ: ð2Þ
−2 −5 2
Because of low CO2 concentration in the air, and OH− in the liquid lgH w ¼ 9:1229−5:9044  10 T þ 7:8857  10 T : ð15Þ
phase in large excess, there is no free CO2 in liquid, i.e.,

ye ¼ 0: ð3Þ The value of h+, h− and hgas were cited from Danckwerts [23] (See
Table 1).
Substituting Eq. (3) into Eq. (2) followed by integration results in The gas phase mass transfer coefficient (kG) for structured packing
could be calculated by the relation [25]:


G yin



K G Ae ¼ ln : ð4Þ D ρG uG dh 0:8 μ G 0:33
PZ yout kG ¼ 0:0338 G : ð16Þ
∘
dh μ G cos45 ρG DG
Though some authors (for example [22]) calculated KGAe by
According to Eqs. (4) and (6), the effective mass transfer area (Ae)
G dyA can be calculated by
K G Ae ¼ : ð5Þ
PyA dZ

K G Ae G yin
Ae ¼ ¼ ln : ð17Þ
For a tower with height of 1.77 m which was much longer than that KG PZK G yout
of this study, it is believed that Eq. (4) (an integral formula) is suitable
for calculating KGAe in this study.
The mass transfer rate from the gas film equals to that into the liquid 3. Experimental Facility and Methods
film and it can be expressed as
The experimental facility and process are shown in Fig. 1. The
dn column was about 1.2 m tall with an inside diameter of 200 mm, in
− A ¼ kG ðP A −H A C AI ÞS ¼ EkL ðC AI −C AL ÞS ¼ K G ðP A −HA C AL ÞS ð6Þ
dt which the height of packed section is 0.8 m. Sheet corrugated structured
packing was packed in the column to promote contact between the gas
with and liquid phases. Air entered at the bottom of the column and flowed
upward, while NaOH solution was pumped to the top of the column
1 1 H
¼ þ A: ð7Þ and flowed downward. After absorption, NaOH solution returned to
K G kG EkL
the tank for cycling while the air exhausted from the top.

The enhancement factor (E) for a fast pseudo first-order reaction is

given by the surface renewable theory [23]:

qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi Vavle CO2 analyzer

E¼ 1 þ H2a ð8Þ

pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
ffi
kDA ½OH− 
Ha ¼ : ð9Þ
kL
Packed
CO2 analyzer
column
Because the reaction between CO2 and NaOH is very fast, H2a ≫ 1.
Thus, the approximate equality holds: Liquid flowmeter
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
ffi Gas flowmeter
kDA ½OH− 
E ¼ Ha ¼ : ð10Þ
kL
Vavle
The reaction rate constant (k) was calculated from the relations [24]:
Tank
2382 2
lgk ¼ 11:895− þ 0:221Ic −0:0161Ic : ð11Þ
T
Fan
Pump
Because the concentration of NaOH is small (0.10–0.15 kmol·m−3) Temperature Measurement
and the viscosity of the solution is close to that of water, the effect of
solution viscosity on the diffusion coefficient for CO2 in the solution Fig. 1. Flow diagram of experiment.
(DA) can be ignored. So DA was calculated from the relation [23]:
During steady operation, the concentrations of CO2 in the gas entering
712:5 2:591  105 and leaving the column were measured respectively using an infrared gas
lgDA ¼ −8:1764 þ − : ð12Þ
T T2 analyzer with the precision of ±2 ml·m−3, while the concentration of

Please cite this article as: W. Yang, et al., X. Yu, Mass Transfer Performance of Structured Packings in a CO2 Absorption Tower, Chin. J. Chem. Eng.
(2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cjche.2014.10.003
 W. Yang et al. / Chinese Journal of Chemical Engineering xxx (2014) xxx–xxx 3

NaOH solution was measured by double-tracer technique. From these 90° rotation arrangement allowed the liquid to spread not only from
measurements, the values of Ae and KGAe can be obtained. With the oper- side to side but also from front to back in the column. So the wetted
ation conditions changed, the mass transfer performance of different area increased.
packings can be studied. Table 2 lists the conditions for the measurement.
(See Table 2.) 4.2. Correlations for Ae
In order to study the effect of corrugated angle (α) on the mass
Correlations for Ae by Onda et al. [27] and Henriques de Brito et al. [25]
listed in Table 3 were tested to calculate Ae in this experiment. For com-
Table 1
Contributions of anion, cation and gas to Henry's constant for CO2
parison the parameters in the two correlations were regressed according
to the results for the packing with α = 45°, β = 90°, h = 9 mm of this
h+/(m3·kmol−1) h−/(m3·kmol−1) t/(°C) hgas/(m3·kmol−1) study. The calculated value and experimental value under different gas
+ −
Na 0.091 OH 0.066 0.2 −0.007 F-factors were shown in Figs. 5–7 respectively. It showed that although
CO32− 0.066 15 −0.01 the trends were the same, results calculated by Onda et al. and Henriques
25 −0.019
de Brito et al. could not predict Ae correctly with different gas flow rates.
40 −0.026
50 −0.029 The average relative error of new correlated Onda et al. correlation (19)
60 −0.016 was 18.0% while for the new correlated Henriques de Brito et al. correla-
tion (21) was 18.2%.
Onda et al. [27] considered that Ae did not change with gas flow rate.
Henriques de Brito et al. [25] discovered that Ae remained unaffected by
Table 2 Fs for packings with less specific area. So in their correlations, there was
Parameters for the measurement not a gas flow rate. However, it was found in this study that Ae improved
Parameter Numerical value with the increase of gas flow rate. In this paper, the correlation by
Pressure for both top and bottom of the tower 0.1 MPa
Henriques de Brito et al. [25] was modified so that the effect of gas
Temperature 301–305 K flow rate could be considered. The new correlation was in the following
Concentration for NaOH solution 0.10–0.15 kmol·m−3 form:
Spraying density 12.7–44.6 m3·m−2·h−1
pffiffiffi
Gas F-factor ( F s ¼ uG ρ) 0.38–1.52 Pa0.5 !x !x
Specific area for sheet corrugated structured packings 148–273 m2·m−3 Ae ρ u 2
Gw 3

Corrugated angle of packing sheet α (Fig. 2) 30°, 37.5°, 45°
Corrugated peak height h (Fig. 2) 9 mm
Addendum angle β (Fig. 2) 75°, 90°, 105°
transfer, packings with α of 30°, 37.5° and 45° were used in this study
at the condition of small liquid/gas flow ratios usually used in the pro-
cess of CO2 absorption.
4. Results and Discussion
4.1. Measurement of Ae
Under the condition of normal pressure and temperature, the gas
flow rate was maintained and the liquid flow rate was altered. By mea-
suring the CO2 concentration in the gas entering and leaving the column
and NaOH concentration of the solvent, the effective mass transfer area
could be measured and calculated. Then, with the liquid flow rate main-
tained, the gas flow rate was changed. So the effective mass transfer
area under different gas and liquid flow rates could be measured and
calculated.
Fig. 3 showed that Ae was affected positively by gas and liquid flow
rates. Wilson [26] also discovered the same results. Alix et al. [16] dis-
covered that Ae of a new structured packing 4D-50% also increased
with the increase of gas and liquid flow rates, because an increase in
wetted packing surface facilitated the mass transfer. It is worth noting
that when the flow rate of gas and liquid increased to a certain value,
Ae would exceed the specific area of packing material. This is consistent
with the fact that Ae was larger than the specific area of packings at a
sufficiently high liquid flow rate [20]. At the high flow rate, the instabil-
ities in the liquid flow (like ripples or waves, detachment and fragmen-
tation of the film into copious liquid showers) led to this phenomenon.
The pattern of packing arrangement impacts the performance of
mass transfer. At the condition of the same gas and liquid flow rate, Ae
was obtained with two arrangement ways of successive packings as
illustrated in Fig. 2. From Fig. 4 Ae of packings with a 90° rotation was
over 30% bigger than that with a 0° rotation. The result was similar to
that in [15]. Aroonwilas et al. discovered that packings with a 90° rota-
tion provided a great and comparable efficiency. It was possible that a
¼ x1 L L : ð22Þ
Ap Ap μ L Ap μ G
According to experimental results, the modification was conducted by
multiple linear regressions to identify new coefficients x1, x2 and x3. The
correlations for the packings with different geometry parameters were
shown in Table 4. The comparison of experimental Ae and calculated Ae
by Eqs. (19), (21) and (22) were shown in Figs. 5–7.
For the packing with α = 45°, β = 90°, h = 9 mm in Figs. 5–7, the
modified correlation Eq. (22) obtains the average relative error for Ae
as 1.3%, compared with 18.0% of Eq. (19) and 18.2% of Eq. (21). So the
modified correlations with the consideration of effects of gas flow
rates showed better agreement.
4.3. The effect of geometry parameters on Ae
There are three main geometry parameters of sheet corrugated
structured packings. They are corrugated angle (α), corrugated peak
height (h) and addendum angle (β) respectively. This paper tried to
change one parameter while fixing the other two parameters. Packings
with different geometry parameters were tested so that the effect of α
and β on Ae could be studied.
When β of 75° was fixed, an example for the results of α variation was
shown in Fig. 8. At the Fs of 0.38 Pa0.5 when Lw was below 41.4 m3/m2·h
packing with α of 45° exhibited the biggest Ae, while Lw was above
41.4 m3/m2·h packing with α of 30° performed best. At the Fs of
0.76 Pa0.5 or 1.14 Pa0.5, when Lw was below 15.9 m3/m2·h packing with
α of 37.5° exhibited the biggest Ae, while Lw was above 15.9 m3/m2·h
packing with α of 30° performed best.
Two examples for the results of β variation were shown in Figs. 9 and
10. At α of 45°, packing with β of 75° performed best except when Fs =
0.76 Pa0.5 and Lw = 44.6 m3/m2·h. However at α of 37.5°, when Fs =
0.76 Pa0.5 or 1.14 Pa0.5, packing with β of 90° performed best. In brief
the effect of α and β was also affected by gas/liquid flow rates. Under
most gas/liquid flow rates in this study, α = 30° and β = 75° were
the best parameters. Aroonwilas et al. [15] also observed that corrugated
angles had important impact on mass transfer performance.
Packings with different geometry parameters exhibited different
effective mass transfer area. In this study, eight different packings were

Please cite this article as: W. Yang, et al., X. Yu, Mass Transfer Performance of Structured Packings in a CO2 Absorption Tower, Chin. J. Chem. Eng.
(2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cjche.2014.10.003
4 W. Yang et al. / Chinese Journal of Chemical Engineering xxx (2014) xxx–xxx

Fig. 2. Geometry and arrangement of sheet corrugated structured packings. (a) 90° rotation; (b) 0° rotation.

300
240 3
Fs=0.48m /h
¢=45e，£=90e，h=9mm
250 α =30e, β =75e, h = 9mm
220
specific area

200 200
Ae

Ae

180
150
0.5
Fs=0.38Pa 160
100 0.5 o
Fs=0.76Pa 0 rotation
o
0.5 140 90 rotation
Fs=1.14Pa

50 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
Lw Lw

Fig. 4. Ae of different packing arrangement patterns.

Fig. 3. Ae for packings with α = 45° and β = 90° vs. liquid load for different gas F-factors
with a packing arrangement of 90° rotation.

4.4. Discussions on KGAe

measured so that the packings with the biggest Ae could be veri-
fied. The results were shown in Figs. 11 to 13. It was apparent
that when the gas F-factor was small (Fs = 0.38 Pa0.5), the packing
with α = 30° and β = 75° had the biggest Ae. However, when the
gas F-factor increased to 0.76 Pa0.5 or 1.14 Pa0.5, the packing with
α = 37.5° and β = 90° exhibited the biggest Ae.
It is important to note that corrugated angle had an impact on the
sensitivity of KGAe to liquid load variation. From Fig. 14, it could be
seen that the packings with corrugated angle of 30° was more sensitive
to the change in liquid load than the packings with corrugated angle of
37.5° and 45°. The result was the same as in [15] that packings with

Please cite this article as: W. Yang, et al., X. Yu, Mass Transfer Performance of Structured Packings in a CO2 Absorption Tower, Chin. J. Chem. Eng.
(2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cjche.2014.10.003
 W. Yang et al. / Chinese Journal of Chemical Engineering xxx (2014) xxx–xxx 5

Table 3 300
Effective mass transfer area correlations
¢=45e，£=90e，h=9mm
Onda et al. 0.5
250 Fs=1.14Pa
2 !−0:05 !0:2 3

0:75
0:10 specific area
Ae σC L Ap L2 L2
¼ 1− exp4−1:45 2
5
Ap σL Ap μ L ρL g Ap ρL σ L
200

Ae
Recorrelated for the present packing with α = 45°, β = 90°, h = 9 mm:
150

"
0:75 !0:20 !−0:05 !0:18 #

Ae σ L Ap L2 L
2
¼ 1− exp −2:85 C Experiment
Ap σL Ap μ L ρL g
2 Ap ρL σ L 100 This study
Modified Onda
Henriques de Brito et al. Modified Henriques de Brito
50
!0:3 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
Ae ρ u
¼ 0:465 L L
Lw
Ap Ap μ L

Fig. 7. Comparison of different correlations to experimental results at the gas F-factor of

Recorrelated for the present packing with α = 45°, β = 90°, h = 9 mm:
1.14 Pa0.5 for packings with α = 45° and β = 90°.

!0:191
Ae ρ u
¼ 0:414 L L
Ap Ap μ L

Table 4
Modified effective mass transfer area correlations for different packings with a packing
arrangement of 90° rotation
specific area No α β h x1 x2 x3 ε
¢=45e，£=90e，h=9mm 1 30 75 9 0.1172 0.2139 0.2430 3.8%
200
Fs=0.38Pa0.5 2 30 90 9 0.1167 0.1492 0.2748 3.2%
3 37.5 75 9 0.08556 0.1213 0.3548 6.9%
4 37.5 90 9 0.05905 0.1225 0.4453 8.1%
5 37.5 105 9 0.06180 0.1648 0.3896 7.9%
150 6 45 75 9 0.06160 0.1706 0.3850 5.0%
7 45 90 9 0.04543 0.1913 0.4221 1.3%
Ae

8 45 105 9 0.05289 0.2471 0.3430 6.5%

100 Experiment
This study
Modified Onda 250
Modified Henriques de Brito
50
10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
Lw
200

Fig. 5. Comparison of different correlations to experimental results at the gas F-factor of

0.38 Pa0.5 for packings with α = 45° and β = 90°.
Ae

Lw=12.7

150 Lw=15.9

¢=45e，£=90e，h=9mm 0.5 Lw=28.7

Fs=0.38 Pa
250
Lw=41.4
Fs=0.76Pa0.5 £=75e
specific area Lw=44.6

200 100
30 35 40 45
¢
Ae

150 Fig. 8. Corrugated angle vs. Ae at gas F-factor of 0.38 Pa0.5 and β = 75°.
Experiment
This study
Modified Onda
100 Modified Henriques de Brito

smaller corrugated angle were expected to a greater change in KGAe

50
with increasing liquid load. The possible reason was that the lower
10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 corrugation angle had a tendency to allow liquid at a given flow rate
Lw to spread in a greater extent over the packing surface.
With the gas flow rate fixed, and liquid flow rate was altered, the CO2
Fig. 6. Comparison of different correlations to experimental results at the gas F-factor of concentration in the gas entering and leaving the column was obtained
0.76 Pa0.5 for packings with α = 45° and β = 90°. and substituted into Eq. (4) so that KGAe could be calculated. It was

Please cite this article as: W. Yang, et al., X. Yu, Mass Transfer Performance of Structured Packings in a CO2 Absorption Tower, Chin. J. Chem. Eng.
(2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cjche.2014.10.003
6 W. Yang et al. / Chinese Journal of Chemical Engineering xxx (2014) xxx–xxx

250 250
0.5 0.5
Fs=0.76 Pa Fs=0.76 Pa
¢=45e

200
Ae

Ae
200

Lw=12.7 150
α =45eβ =75e α =45e β =90e
Lw=15.9
α =45eβ =105e α =30eβ =75e
Lw=28.7 α =30eβ =90e α =37.5eβ =75e
Lw=41.4 α =37.5e β =90e α =37.5e β =105e
Lw=44.6 100
150 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
70 75 80 85 90 95 100 105 110
Lw
£

Fig. 9. Addendum angle vs. Ae at gas F-factor of 0.76 Pa0.5 and α = 45°. Fig. 12. Comparison of Ae for different packings at the gas F-factor of 0.76 Pa0.5.

300
300 0.5
Fs=1.14Pa
0.5
Fs=0.76 Pa
250
¢=37.5e

250
Ae

200
Ae

Lw=12.7
α =45e β =75e α =45eβ =90e
200 Lw=15.9 150
α =45e β =105e α =30e β =75e
Lw=28.7 α =30e β =90e α =37.5e β =75e
Lw=41.4 α =37.5e β =90e α =37.5e β =105e

Lw=44.6 100
10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
150
70 75 80 85 90 95 100 105 110 Lw
£
Fig. 13. Comparison of Ae for different packings at the gas F-factor of 1.14 Pa0.5.
Fig. 10. Addendum angle vs. Ae at gas F-factor of 0.76 Pa0.5 and α = 37.5°.

0.0110

0.0105
200 0.5
Fs=0.76 Pa
Fs=0.38 Pa
0.5
0.0100

0.0095

0.0090
KGAe

150
0.0085
Ae

0.0080

0.0075 α =30e β =75eh =9

100
α =45e β =75e α =45e β =90e α =37.5e β =75e，h =9
α =45eβ =105e α =30eβ =75e
0.0070 α =45e β =75e，h =9
α =30eβ =90e α =37.5eβ =75e
0.0065
α =37.5eβ =90e α =37.5eβ =105e 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
Lw
50
10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
Lw Fig. 14. Liquid load vs. KGAe for structured packings with different corrugated angles.

Fig. 11. Comparison of Ae for different packings at the gas F-factor of 0.38 Pa0.5.

apparent that KGAe increased with the increase of liquid and gas flow mass transfer performance. Zeng et al. [28] observed that KGAe increased
rates. As the liquid and gas flow increased, more CO2 molecules were with the increase of gas flow rate using CO2–NH3·H2O system.
allowed to travel to the reaction zone, which would result in the higher Aroonwilas and Tontiwachwuthikul [22] also used CO2–NaOH system

Please cite this article as: W. Yang, et al., X. Yu, Mass Transfer Performance of Structured Packings in a CO2 Absorption Tower, Chin. J. Chem. Eng.
(2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cjche.2014.10.003
 W. Yang et al. / Chinese Journal of Chemical Engineering xxx (2014) xxx–xxx 7

28
will be used to evaluate the performance of mass transfer with different
26 packings.

24 α =45e，β =90e，h=9 mm
Nomenclature
22
Lw=15.9 Ae effective mass transfer area, m2·m−3
KG/kG (%)

20 AP specific area of packings, m2·m−3

CAI concentration of A at gas–liquid interface, kmol·m−3
18 CAL concentration of A in the liquid subject
16 DA diffusion coefficient of A in the liquid, m2·s−1
dh hydraulic diameter of packing, m
14 E chemical enhancement factor
Fs gas F-factor, Pa0.5
12
G total mole gas flow rate, kmol·m−2·s−1
10 Gw gas mass flow rate, kg·m−2·s−1
0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4 1.6
GI inert gas molar flow rate, kmol·m−2·s−1
Fs
HA Henry's law constant for CO2 in aqueous electrolyte solution,
kPa·m3·kmol−1
Fig. 15. Proportion which gas phase mass transfer resistance accounts for in total mass Ha Hatta number
transfer resistance vs. gas F-factor.
Hw Henry's law constant for CO2–water, kPa·m3·kmol−1
h corrugated peak height of sheet corrugated structured
packings, mm
hi contributions of i to Henry's law constant
hgas contributions of gas to Henry's law constant
and discovered that KGAe increased with liquid flow rate increasing h+ contributions of positive ion to Henry's law constant
while remained unaffected by a gas flow rate. The liquid flow range h− contributions of negative ion to Henry's law constant
and gas flow range of Aroonwilas and Tontiwachwuthikul [22] experi- Ic ionic strength, kmol·m−3
ment were 4 to 14 m3·m−2·h− 1 and 0.31 to 0.66 Pa0.5, which were KG overall gas phase mass transfer
smaller than that of this study. This indicated that liquid film was coefficient, kmol·m− 2·s− 1·kPa− 1
controlling the resistance but when gas flow rate increased to a certain kG gas phase mass transfer coefficient, kmol·m−2·s−1·kPa−1
degree liquid film was struck into liquid drops so that Ae increased thus L liquid mass flow rate, kg·m−2·s−1
improving KGAe. So in this study KGAe increased upwards when Fs Lw spraying density, m3·m−2·h−1
increased from 0.38 to 1.14 Pa0.5. NA interface mass transfer rate of A, kmol·m−2·s−1
The total mass transfer resistance and gas phase mass transfer re- P total system pressure, kPa
sistance can be calculated by KG and kG respectively so that the ratio S gas–liquid contact area, m2
(K G /k G ) which gas phase mass transfer resistance accounts for total T temperature, K
mass transfer resistance can be obtained in Fig. 15. It was evident that uL flow rate of liquid, m·s−1
KG/kG was less than 50% and decreased with the increase of gas flow YA mole ratio of CO2 in the gas phase
rate. So the process of NaOH solution absorbing CO2 could be defined ye mole fraction of component in the gas phase in equilibrium
as liquid-film control. This is consistent with the literature conclusion with liquid subject concentration
that the major mass transfer resistance lay in the liquid film [29]. The yin mole fraction of component in the gas phase entering
same result was also obtained by the Zeng et al. [28]. When the gas the column
flow rate was very high, the gas phase mass transfer resistance became yout mole fraction of component in the gas phase leaving
very small. In this case, there were two methods to improve mass trans- the column
fer rate. First increasing the concentration of NaOH solution could Z height of packing layer, m
improve the enhancement factor of reaction which caused the decrease α corrugated angle for sheet corrugated structured packings,
of liquid phase mass transfer resistance. Secondly, Ae could be improved degree
by increasing the liquid load. β addendum angle for sheet corrugated structured packings,
degree
5. Conclusions h corrugated peak height of sheet corrugated structured
packings, mm
The performance of sheet metal corrugated structured packings ε mean relative deviation for effective mass transfer area
with different geometric parameters was studied for CO2 absorption ρL density of liquid, kg·m−3
by aqueous NaOH solution. The results show that effective mass transfer μG viscosity of gas, Pa·s
area of packings increases along with the increase in gas and liquid flow μL viscosity of liquid, Pa·s
rates, and even surpass the specific area of packings. The process of σC critical surface tension for packing material, mN·m−1
NaOH solution absorbing CO2 belongs to the process of liquid-film σL surface tension of the liquid, mN·m−1
control, and as the gas flow rate increases, the fraction gas phase mass
transfer resistance in the total resistance decreases. Effective mass
transfer area of packings is also related to geometric parameters, and Subscripts
usually when corrugated angle α equals to 30° and addendum angle β A CO2
equals to 75°, the performance of mass transfer is excellent. A modified e vapor liquid equilibrium
correlation considering the effects of both liquid and gas flow rates have G gas phase
been proposed with a good agreement. i gas, positive ion, negative ion
As for CO2 scrubbing, amine aqueous solutions are frequently used in gas phase entering the column
as absorbent. In the future aqueous amine solutions (MEA, MDEA, etc.) L liquid phase

Please cite this article as: W. Yang, et al., X. Yu, Mass Transfer Performance of Structured Packings in a CO2 Absorption Tower, Chin. J. Chem. Eng.
(2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cjche.2014.10.003
8 W. Yang et al. / Chinese Journal of Chemical Engineering xxx (2014) xxx–xxx
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