Experimental and numerical investigation of H2O vapor absorption processes in falling film of LiBr aqueous solution in vertical tubes

The LiBr-H2O absorption systems are used mainly in large cooling capacity applications (industry, large buildings, etc.), therefore require water from cooling towers to reject heat. However, if middle and low capacity are required (commercial and residential systems), absorption machines should be air-cooled in order to become competitive [1-4]. The absorber represents a major critical component in absorption systems and one of the key issues, in it is the combined heat and mass transfer in the absorption process. For this reason the development of mathematical models for the simulation and experimental data for the validation are always useful tools for the design and improvement of falling film vertical absorbers. A testing device has been designed and built for reproducing absorption phenomena in vertical tubes with the primary objective to obtain experimental data in LiBr-H2O vertical absorbers. The versatility of the experiment allows to obtain a wide range of data. Peer Reviewed