Distillation studies in rotating packed bed with split packing

Rotating packed bed (RPB) with split packing has been developed recently to overcome the limitation of negligible tangential slip velocity between vapor and packing obtained with single rotating packing element of conventional RPB design. This work evaluates the performance of this contactor for separation of binary mixture methanol-ethanol by distillation. Experiments were carried out at total reflux condition. The height equivalent of a theoretical plate (HETP) of 2.9 cm was obtained at F-factor = 0.6 (m/s) (kg/m(3))(0.5) and rotor speed of 1100 rpm. Comparison with distillation studies reported for this system in the literature indicated that the mass transfer performance of this rotor design was superior to that of conventional RPB. Analysis of the experimental data also suggested that the rotor speed influenced the overall volumetric mass transfer coefficient to a greater degree in this design. (C) 2011 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.