Characterising a Vahterus heat exchanger as a gas-liquid reactor

TNO is the Dutch organization for applied research and innovations that among others accelerate the energy transition. As leader of the NL-sponsored E-Champ project TNO has been working with SUSTER to investigate the performance of a Vahterus plate type heat exchanger when it is used as a gas-liquid reactor with integral cooling.

The exothermic and reversible reaction between an aqueous mono-ethanol amine solution and gaseous CO₂ was to be used as a model reaction. SUSTER built an experimental rig with the Vahterus/Wijbenga unit as absorber and a packed column (0,16 x 6 m) as desorber and demonstrated that the Vahterus unit can indeed be used as a gas-liquid reactor and that integral cooling does affect conversion.

Read more about this case in this article.