Experimental study of a rotating packed bed distillation column

• Autor(a) principal: Nascimento,J. V. S.
• Data de Publicação: 2009
• Outros Autores: Ravagnani,T. M. K., Pereira,J. A. F. R.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Brazilian Journal of Chemical Engineering
• Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0104-66322009000100021
• topic: Distillation; Mass transfer coefficient; Rotating packed bed

The purpose of this work was to study the mass transfer performance of rotating packed beds applying the "Higee" process. The operations were carried out with the n-hexane/n-heptane distilling system at atmospheric pressure and under total reflux conditions. The rotating speed could be varied between 300 and 2500 rpm, which provided centrifugal forces from 5 to 316 times the Earth's gravity. The effects of concentration, vapor velocity, rotating speed and packing type (two different Raschig ring sizes and structured wire mesh packing) on mass transfer behavior were analyzed. Experimental results showed that the mass transfer coefficient depends on the liquid flow rates and rotating speed. The equipment had high separation efficiency in a reduced bed volume.