Performance investigation on the liquid desiccant regeneration using rotating packed bed
Abstract The regenerator which is applied to recover the dilute solution plays a significant role in the liquid desiccant system. Rotating packed bed (RPB) has been demonstrated to heat and mass transfer process intensification, and successfully applied in the field of gas absorption. To validate the application of rotating packed bed in the regeneration of the dilute solution, a counter-flow RPB regenerator was studied in this work. Three groups of performance indices including moisture removal rate, heat and mass transfer coefficients, and regeneration effectiveness, were employed to evaluate the performance of the regenerator. The effects of the high gravity factor, air flux, solution flux, air inlet parameters, and solution inlet parameters on the performance indices were investigated and compared with the conventional regenerator. Correlations of heat and mass transfer coefficients were presented on the basis of the experimental data. The mass transfer coefficients of RPB regenerator locate within 12.5–35.6 kg m−3 s−1 which are higher than those in the conventional regenerators. According to the comparison, the RPB regenerator has superiority in the mass transfer performances.