High efficiency and compact design of the desulfurization technology is necessary to meet the strict emission requirement of the marine environment. A rotating packed bed (RPB), having high mass transfer efficiency and small size, is an excellent choice for SO2 removal from the exhaust gas in ships. In this work, SO2 removal in a laboratory and a pilot RPB with sodium sulfite solution were investigated. Experimental results show that the SO2 concentration at the gas outlet of the RPB can decrease sharply and it has no obvious scale up effect. A correlation of the mass transfer coefficient (K(y)a) was proposed and the predicted Kya agrees with the experimental data with a deviation within +/- 15%. Compared with the spray tower, the RPB has a higher SO2 removal efficiency and a quarter volume, which displays a bright future for the offshore application of SO2 removal.