Experimental Investigation ofTwo-phase Flow in Microchannels“Co-current Absorption of Ammonia in Water to Design an Innovative Bubble Plate Absorber” : “Co-current Absorption of Ammonia in Water to Design an Innovative Bubble Plate Absorber”

Abstract: For ammonia-water absorption refrigeration technology it is suggested to use bubble type absorbers because the higher contact surface area provides a higher mass transfer rate. Furthermore, dispersion of bubbles in the bulk of liquid phase also exhibits better heat transfer characteristics that facilitate the recovery of dissipated heat of the exothermic absorption.In this context, plate heat exchangers are believed to be an option to be employed as absorber in some applications. Commercial plate heat exchangers have only one inlet and outlet for a working fluid and as a result, gas and liquid should be mixed before supplied to a gap between the two adjacent plates. The consequence is the high risk of bubble mergence to form a bigger bubble and to follow the shortest flow paths in vertical direction so that not all the heat transfer surface can be effectively used. Furthermore this feature makes plate heat exchangers sensitive to the angle of plate relative to the vertical which would be worst when it is laid to its side on a horizontal plane.Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT) develops an efficient Bubble Plate Absorber for applications in high-pressure absorption systems and this work tries to investigate design possibility of this Bubble Plate Absorber based on a plate heat exchanger equipped with microchannels between plates.Two sets of seven parallel microchannels same in shape and dimension were tested. The first set had a continuous wall which means fluids could flow independently along the microchannels; whereas, the other set was benefiting from some linkages between channels that fluids could cross from one microchannel to another one. Ammonia vapour was injected via one and two-holed distributors.It was found that microchannels with continuous wall deliver higher concentration and less unabsorbed bubbles at the microchannels outlet. In visual analysis by high-speed camera, changing the vapour distributors from single-hole to double-hole had no significant effect on the bubble distribution quality in lower flowrates; however, double-hole vapour distributor showed better performance in higher vapours flowrates.