Local Separation Performance for Distillation Processes in Rotating Packed Beds: Transferability and Applicability

A temperature-based measurement setup for distillation processes in rotating packed beds (RPBs) was used to investigate the overall separation performance, as well as the individual contribution of different zones to the overall performance for two chemical systems and four different packing dimensions. It was found that the local separation performance is not affected by varying the packing height or radial packing length but depends on the chemical system studied. Using the experimental setup, 2 to 7 number of transfer units (NTUs) within the packing could be achieved by varying the throughput and rotational speed. Furthermore, the experimental setup was redesigned to evaluate exclusively the separation performance of the casing, resulting in a number of theoretical stages of about Nth = 0.86. The separation performance of the casing can be used to determine the composition of the fluids entering and leaving the packing.