The absorption of carbon dioxide-air mixtures in water in a packed-bed recirculating absorption column with an inner diameter of 0.08 m and a length of 1.20 m was investigated. A model is derived and numerically solved for recycling packed-bed absorption systems in order to determine the overall mass transfer coefficients. The relationship between the K(L)a values calculated in this work and the operating hold-up is presented. The model is based on physical gas absorption from multi-component mixtures, and the model predicted concentration-time profiles are compared with those of the experimental measurements. This procedure is repeated by changing the value of mass transfer coefficients in the model until a good agreement is reached with the experimental measurements. Experimental data were collected during absorption of carbon dioxide in water using different carbon dioxide-air gas compositions in recirculating packed columns operating under high flow rates (8.33 x 10(-5)-1.50 x 10(-4) m(3) s(-1)). The experiments were carried out at 20, 25 and 30 degrees C, It was found that the K(L)a values of this study are in agreement with the literature values.