Design of packed towers for the scrubbing of gaseous nitrogen oxides

A computer code was developed for the design of packed towers for absorption of gaseous nitrogen oxides. This code incorporates a previously existing mathematical model for nitrogen oxide absorption which was primarily used for data analysis. The theory of mass transfer coupled with chemical reaction phenomena provide the basis for this modeling.

A design study of a tower packed with 1 in. ceramic Raschig rings is presented to demonstrate the performance of this mathematic model. Nitrogen oxides removal efficiencies were obtained over a wide range of different parameter variations in this study. Other important features of this development effort are presented and discussed.

This code is to be used for the design of packed towers for nitrogen oxide absorption into water or dilute nitric acid using any given packing material provided the mass transfer coefficients and the interfacial area are known or could be estimated using generalized correlations embedded in this code.