Experimental and theoretical investigation of mass transfer in a cooling tower

Abstract

The mass transfer coefficient for a cooling tower is determined experimentally and theoretically. Contribution of a diffusion and convection component into mass transfer is estimated. The assessment showed that the contribution of the convection component into mass transfer can be neglected. Thickness of the diffusion layer was experimentally measured and compared with the theoretically obtained hydrodynamic displacement layer. The calculation of the mass transfer coefficient uses the displacement layer. It is demonstrated that the difference between experimental data and simulation results does not exceed 33% in the range of air velocity of (1.3–3.0) m/s.