Modelling of gas/vapour liquid separation processes usually requires experimentally determined parameters, e.g., mass transfer coefficients. This results in expensive experimental work, especially for new types of column internals. A novel modelling approach based on hydrodynamic analogies (HA) has recently been developed for distillation units equipped with structured corrugated sheet packings. The HA model takes the packing geometry directly into account whereas the experimental determination of mass transfer coefficients is not required. In this work, the HA approach is extended to cover heterogeneously catalysed reactive stripping processes. Experimental investigations are performed with a test system, esterification of hexanoic acid and 1-octanol, using different types of catalytically coated supports as column internals (one corrugated sheet packing and three film-flow monoliths with different channel geometries). Simulation results obtained with the extended HA model are in a good agreement with experimental values. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.