A guide on the industrial application of rotating packed beds

Publikationstyp
Review Article
Date Issued
2018-06
Sprache
English
Author(s)
Neumann, Kolja  
Gładyszewski, Konrad  
Groß, Kai  
Qammar, Hina  
Wenzel, Dennis  
Górak, Andrzej  
Skiborowski, Mirko 
TORE-URI
http://hdl.handle.net/11420/8198
Journal
Chemical engineering research and design  
Start Page
443
End Page
462
Citation
Chemical Engineering Research and Design (134): 443-462 (2018-06)
Publisher DOI
10.1016/j.cherd.2018.04.024
Scopus ID
2-s2.0-85046811222
Rotating packed beds (RPBs) exploit centrifugal fields in order to improve separations and reactions. The reported advantages of RPBs compared to state of the art equipment for the mixing and contacting of different fluids are significant reductions in equipment volume, corresponding large capacities and improved selectivities. These benefits can be attributed to the intense micromixing of the fluids and the intense internal mass transfer between different phases. Further advantages of RPBs are fast dynamics resulting in a quick achievement of steady state operation, the possibility to process highly viscous fluids and the additional degree of freedom resulting from the variable rotational speed. Although various successful implementations of RPBs on an industrial scale have been reported, conclusive criteria and guidelines for the selection of RPBs are still missing. Consequently, they are seldomly considered during process design. In order to derive explicit criteria that indicate the suitability of an RPB, known industrial applications for gas-liquid, vapor-liquid and liquid-liquid contacting applications are analyzed in the present study. On this basis, distinctive decision trees are introduced in order to facilitate the identification of processes in which the use of an RPB is expected to be beneficial.
Subjects
Absortion
Deaeration
Distillation
HiGee
Mixing
Rotating packed bed