Heat and mass transfer in microscale diabatic distillation columns for ammonia-water desorption and rectification

An experimental investigation of heat and mass transfer in novel desorber and rectifier components based on the diabatic distillation principle is conducted. Heat and mass transfer coefficients measured here are compared with predictions of correlations from the literature. Temperature profiles are compared with component-specific heat and mass transfer models. Good agreement between model predictions and experimental results is shown. While heat and mass transfer correlations from the literature provide reasonable prediction of the data, further improvement is achieved with proposed correlations for liquid mass transfer and binary mixture correction coefficients. The results from this study show the potential for these novel designs to be implemented in small-capacity ammonia-water absorption systems.