Definition

• A gas–liquid contactor is a particular chemical

equipment used to realize the mass and heat
transfer between a gas phase and a liquid phase.
• Gas–liquid contactors can be used in :
separation processes (e.g. distillation, absorption)
or
as gas–liquid reactors or
to achieve both purposes within the same device
(e.g. reactive distillation).
 Typologies
• differential gas–liquid contactors: the mass
transfer happens within the entire length of
the contactor[1] and the vapor–liquid
equilibrium is not reached in any point of the
equipment;[1]
• stagewise gas–liquid contactors: the vapor–
liquid equilibrium is reached within each stage
of the equipment and mass transfer happens
in a part only of the volume of each stage.
 Examples
• Examples of differential gas–liquid contactors are:
 Falling-film column
 packed column
 bubble column
 spray tower
 gas–liquid agitated vessel.
• Examples of stagewise gas–liquid contactors are:
 plate column
 rotating disc contactor
 Venturi tube.
Falling Film Coulumn
Plate Coulumn
Packed Coulumn
Bubble Coulumn
• Some important factors to take into account to choice the typology
of gas–liquid contactor more suitable for a particular application
are:
 liquid hold-up
 surface area of the gas–liquid interface.
• In particular heat and mass transfer velocity is higher for equipment
with higher values of gas–liquid interface surface area, so gas–liquid
contactors with high surface area (e.g. packed column, spray tower)
are often preferred when it is important to lower the cost of the
equipment.
• Liquid hold-up is also an important factor for the economy of the
process, because for low values of liquid hold-up a bigger
equipment is needed to have the same heat and mass transfer
velocity. For this reason, gas–liquid contactors with low liquid-hold-
up (e.g. falling-film column) in general are not used at industrial
scale.
Application
Equipment