Continuous Distillation Experiment with Rotating Packed Bed

The performance of a rotating packed bed (RPB) with three kinds of packings was investigated using alcohol/water solution under continuous distillation conditions at atmospheric pressure. The effects of average high gravity factor (β), reflux ratio (R), and feedstock flux (F) on mass-transfer in distillation were examined separately. Experimental results indicated that the total number of theoretical units (NTU) of RPB increased with β, R, and F. Of the three kinds of packings, the wave thread packing of stainless steel (Packing III) had the best mass transfer efficiency with the height equivalent of a theoretical plate (HETP) of approximately 7.35 mm- 23.58 mm, whereas the corrugated disk packing of stainless steel (Packing I) had the worst one with the HETP of about 13.4 mm-48.07 mm. Correlations were developed to describe the mass transfer efficiency for packings. Comparing experimental data with the data calculated by correlation, the average deviate obtained for each packing was 0.72%, 1.98%, and 2.7%, respectively, implying that the accuracy of correlations developed was reasonable.