Absorption of carbon dioxide from atmosphere has been investigated in a packed column with a height of 2 meters and solutions of KOH/K2CO3 or NaOH/Na2CO3 as scrubbing liquid. This system characterised by very low energy and mass transfer rates can be described excellently by the HTU-NTU model. The maximum deviation of the effective interfacial area thus determined on the base of various measured absorption rates at constant temperature and hydrodynamics and varying liquid composition is less than 10%. These results show that the absorption of carbon dioxide from air can be applied as standard test system for column packings.