Liquid impaction on a static wire mesh in the cavity zone of rotating packed bed: Gas–liquid interfacial area modeling

Abstract The cavity zone of rotating packed beds (RPBs) contributed to mass transfer but was scarcely utilized during process intensifications. This work installed a static single‐layer stainless steel wire mesh (SSM) in the cavity zone of RPB to reuse liquid kinetic energy by an impaction process, followed by investigations of impaction characteristics. High‐speed photography observed two actions of interception and dispersion and four typical interaction modes of one‐ligament dispersion, two‐ligament dispersion, unimpeded droplet passage, and droplet adhesion during impaction. Probing indicated that the surface hydrophobic modification weakened interception and enhanced dispersion, reducing the interception rate from 17.7%–49.6% to 1.52%–10.4% and daughter droplet diameter from 0.398–0.701 mm to 0.385–0.643 mm. A gas–liquid interfacial area model was developed in the cavity and verified via the CO 2 absorption experiment, revealing that the hydrophobic SSM increased the total interfacial area by 49.3% compared to no SSM in RPB's cavity.