Patent ID: 6918949

Claim:
A method for contacting large volumes of gas and liquid across a multitude of microscopic interfaces, comprising the steps of: providing an outer vessel having a central longitudinal axis circumscribed by a non-porous generally cylindrical side wall with first and second ends, and a plurality of elongate tubes within said outer vessel disposed in circumferentially spaced relation having longitudinal axes parallel to and radially spaced from said outer vessel longitudinal axis, each of said tubes having a microscopically porous side wall with an inner surface surrounding a hollow interior and opposed first and second ends, said outer vessel sealed around said first and second ends of said tubes to form a pressurized gas chamber surrounding said tubes; introducing a stream of liquid into the first end of said plurality of tubes tangential to the inner surface thereof; controlling the flow of a thin film of the liquid in a spiral pattern around and along the inner surface of each of said plurality of tubes from said first end to said second end, so as to impose centrifugal accelerations on the liquid on the inner surfaces thereof; sparging a gas through the porous side wall of each of said plurality of tubes and through the liquid spiraling therethrough at an overall gas to liquid volumetric flow ratio of up to a maximum rated differential pressure measured across each tube, whereby the overall gas to liquid flow rate is divided into a number of individual transfer units in which the interfacial contact area between gas and liquid is extremely large, whereby highly efficient transport between liquid and gas is achieved.