"String-of-beads" flow of liquids on vertical wires for gas absorption

A liquid steadily fed onto a thin wire vertically held in a gas stream may flow down the wire, taking the form of a “string of beads,” which is a composite of teardrop‐shaped beads regularly aligned on the wire and thin cylindrical films each coating the portion of the wire between two neighboring beads. The beads slide down at a constant speed, interacting with the films flowing down much more slowly, thereby inducing some mixing motion in the liquid phase. The string‐of‐beads flow exhibited by water or an aqueous monoethanolamine solution was observed, and the mass transfer of CO2 from the surrounding CO2/N2 mixture into water flowing down single wires was studied both experimentally and analytically. The results indicate the potential of on‐wire string‐of‐beads flow devices for innovating gas–liquid contact operations to be used in, for example, removing CO2 from flue gases exhausted at fossil‐fuel‐fired power plants.