Mass transfer in a rotating packed bed reactor with a mesh-pin rotor: Modeling and experimental studies

A rotating packed bed (RPB) reactor with full stainless steel wire mesh packing loaded in the rotor has excellent mass transfer performance. However, it has the blockage problem when applied to the reactions with solid generated on the surface of the packing. In this work, a mesh-pin rotor (MPR), combining an inner wire mesh packing zone (IMZ) and an outer resin pin zone (OPZ), was designed with the purpose of anti-blockage for the first time, expecting to possess the high mass transfer performance of wire mesh packing and self-cleaning performance of cylindrical pins. With the assistance of liquid holdup measurement by X-Ray CT scan technology, a mass transfer model was proposed for the RPB reactor with MPR and the liquid-side volumetric mass transfer coefficient (kLae) was measured by using an oxygen-water desorption system. The predicted results by the model showed good agreement with the experimental results within a deviation of ±20%, displaying potential application prospects.