Improvement of Mass Transfer Coefficient for Carbon Dioxide in Water by Application of Ultrasonic Waves

There are some drawbacks and limitations in conventional CO2 capture technologies including low mass transfer area. Therefore, it is necessary to provide a new absorption technology that does not have this limitation. The use of high-frequency ultrasonic waves is a method to produce fine droplets by atomizing the solvent. These droplets provide a large surface area for the mass transfer process. In this research, absorption was carried out utilizing high-frequency ultrasonic waves. The results indicated that the CO2 absorption rate in water was increased up to 20 times in comparison to the case without ultrasonic irradiation at 8.64 watts. In addition, a magnetic stirrer was applied instead of the ultrasonic transducer to compare these methods. In this condition, the mass transfer coefficient by the ultrasonic system was approximately 4.4 times more than the magnetic stirrer, which indicates better performance of the ultrasonic waves compared to the stirrer.