A widely operated way to treat industrial air loaded with VOCs is the absorption technique. For this, the choice of a well-adapted solvent is obviously of prime importance. In the present work an absorption process using viscous organic absorbents. namely, phthalates was studied to scrub flue gases. A suitable thin film device, the cables-bundle contactor, was applied both to favor mass transfer and to limit the pressure drops, and various experiments were achieved at the pilot-scale. Correlations predicting hydrodynamic and mass transfer parameters (interfacial area, liquid hold-up, liquid phase mass transfer coefficients) essential for the design of industrial absorption units. were deduced from experimental results. A comparison of performances of the cables contactor and a packed bed scrubber of same void fraction was made for absorption of toluene into DEHP. (c) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.