Development of new wire mesh packings for improving the performance of zero carryover spray tower

This paper presents the experimental results of chemical dehumidification of air by aqueous CaCl2 liquid desiccant. A new design of the spray tower for eliminating carryover without increasing the pressure drops has been done. New types of wire mesh packings have also been proposed for improving the performance of the conventional spray tower. Three different configurations of the wire mesh packings have been designed and tested to improve the performance of tower with least cost addition. Experimental results have been presented in terms of ’change in specific humidity’, rate of moisture removal and tower effectiveness. Comparison of the experimental results of towers using these three packings with the conventional spray tower show improvement in the performance of spray tower (∼30%) without mounting air side pressure drop burden. Mass flow rate of liquid desiccant, mass flow rate of air, inlet specific humidity of air, and concentration of desiccant solution are found to have major influence on the performance.