Liquid and gas phase mass transfer coefficients and interfacial area in a column equipped with structured packing

Studies on CO2 removal and structured packed columns have been prominent in recent years. This study, as the first stage on this subject, involves characterization studies including hydrodynamics and mass transfer coefficients of a new genuine structured packed column designed and manufactured by our own facilities, which can be used for this purpose. Firstly, the maximum and minimum limits of the gas and liquid velocities that can be employed in the column were determined by specifying the loading and flooding points through pressure drop measurements. Accordingly, the superficial velocity ranges for liquid and gas were identified as 0.002-0.0047 [m/s] and 0.07-0.68 [m/s], respectively. The individual volumetric physical mass transfer coefficients of the liquid side (k(L)(0)a) and gas side (k(c)(0)a) were obtained experimentally in these ranges. Overall volumetric physical mass transfer coefficients (K(c)(0)a) were calculated for CO2-water system according to the two-resistance theory. The experiments were also performed with CO2-NaOH system, and overall volumetric chemical mass transfer coefficients (K(c)a), Hatta number (Ha) and enhancement factor (E) were determined. The experimental findings indicated that the fast pseudo-first order reaction regime was acceptable for this chemical absorption. Finally, the effective interfacial area (a(eff)) values were also determined at different gas and liquid velocities.