PREDICTION OF MASS-TRANSFER RATE IN FIBROUS AND GRANULAR MEDIA USING PACKING PERMEABILITY

Mass transfer in randomly packed fibrous and granular media is investi gated theoretically for the case of high Pe numbers, where the mass tr ansfer boundary layer is much thinner than the heat transfer boundary layer. The mass transfer rate is correlated with the packing permeabil ity, which contains the major information of packing characteristics, porosity and element size which can all be measured by simple experime nts. The correlation describes available numerical and experimental da ta with very good agreement. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd.