Hydrodynamics and mass transfer performance of turbulent contact absorbers.

Abstract

Operating velocities, pressure drop, liquid hold up and operating bed heights for TCA and packed bed contactors have been investigated for a wide range of operating conditions. A model for counter-current gas-liquid contacting in a bed of spherical packing is proposed. Two operating regimes, the fluidization before flooding and fluidization at the flooding point of a fixed bed are described and predicted by a phase diagram. A correlation for minimum fluidization velocity is presented, based on the proposed hydrodynamical model. (from authors' abstract)