A parametric analysis of heat and mass transfer in regenerative exchangers that employ sorbent materials has been performed. The adopted methodology is based on the effectiveness-NTU (number of transfer units) approach, traditionally employed for analyzing sensible heat exchangers. However, a generalization was developed to account for the effects of coupled heat and mass transfer, matrix diffusion, as well as physical adsorption. The generalized approach was applied to a unified mathematical formulation for this class of exchangers and the potential of the methodology was demonstrated through an analysis of the influence of several dimensionless parameters on regenerator performance. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.