Absorbers

Absorption is the process of taking gas or vapours by a liquid substance (absorbent) and making it a part of itself. The absorption is widely used in industry for sanitary treatment of exhaust gases during different technological processes, for obtaining a finished product through absorption of the gas by the liquid and also for separating valuable components from gas mixture. The absorption processes are carried out in devices called absorbers. In most cases these are vertical vessels. Absorber consists of casing (column) provided with output and input connection pipes for interacting phases and contact elements. Absorbers can be divided according to the way to establish phase contacting area into packed absorber, bubble absorber and spray absorber. As a phase contacting area in packed absorbers are used packings with different configuration (rings, seats, frames etc.) and with extended surface of mass exchange. Liquid and gas in bubble absorbers come into contact by means of the passage of gas bubbles (barbotage) through liquid layer. A particular case is plate absorber where gas goes through several small holes in the partitions (plates). The surface of mass exchange in spray (hollow) absorbers appears on the surface of multiple liquid drops which are sprayed in the device’s space by atomizers. Water is often used as an absorbent in absorbers, but different chemical reagents can be also used according to the object of absorption.