Carbon dioxide capture in a HiGee reactor with packing featuring controllable cross-sectional area

• Mesh packings with controllable cross-sectional areas were applied in RPB. • CO 2 absorption with amine solutions including DETA and PZ were studied. • CO 2 absorption efficiency of CONC-9 exceeded 17.1% than that of the COII-9. • The K G a/△P W of CONC-9 was larger by 48.6% than that of the COII-9. A rotating packed bed (RPB), as one of the typical HiGee reactors, has achieved extensive praise in CO 2 capture fields. In this work, the novel mesh packings with controllable cross-sectional areas (CSAs) were applied to intensify the CO 2 absorption process in an RPB, as well as combining with the blended aqueous amine solutions including diethylenetriamine (DETA) and piperazine (PZ). The gas pressure drop and CO 2 absorption performance of various packings were investigated. Different operating conditions including rotational speed (400–2400 r/min), liquid flow rate (10–35 L/h), gas flow rate (900–2400 L/h), and CO 2 molar fraction in gas inlet (2–12%) were considered. The results exhibited that the rise in gas pressure drop of concentric packing with constant CSA (CONC-9) relative to conventional coiled packing with increasing CSA (COII-9) was less than 10% on average. Meanwhile, the CO 2 absorption efficiency of CONC-9 exceeded 17.1% on average than that of COII-9. For further comparison, the ratio of mass transfer coefficient to gas pressure drop in the wet RPB ( K G a/△P W ) was analyzed. The K G a/△P W of CONC-9 was 48.6% larger on average than that of COII-9. The average mass transfer coefficient and height of mass transfer unit of CONC-9 reached up to 16.7 kmol∙kPa -1 ∙m -3 ∙h -1 and 0.013 m, respectively. Overall, it is a viable way to adopt the packing with constant CSA to intensify the CO 2 absorption in RPB.