MECHANISM OF ABSORPTION ENHANCEMENT BY SURFACTANT

In absorption refrigeration technology, it is well known that the wate r vapor absorption into the lithium bromide (LiBr) aqueous solution is enhanced by the addition of surfactant. The Marangoni effect plays a role but its mechanism is not clearly understood yet. In the present s tudy, the existence of instability due to Marangoni effect was investi gated using the linear stability analysis, based on the salting out ef fect. Then the vapor absorption augmentation was estimated by the nume rical simulation of cellular convection. Both theoretical results qual itatively agree well with the experimental ones. (C) 1997 Elsevier Sci ence Ltd.