Conservation of the bubble size distribution function was applied to the reactive absorption of carbon dioxide in a bubble column reactor. The model developed was solved by the method of characteristics and by a Monte Carlo method. Simulations were carried out using simplified models for the liquid phase and for the gas-liquid mass transfer. Predictions of gas holdup and outlet gas composition showed that the concept of a mean bubble diameter is not applicable when the bubble size distribution is reasonably polydispersed. In these cases, the mass mean velocity and the numerical mean velocity of the bubbles are very different. Therefore, quantification of the polydispersion of bubbles was shown to be essential to gas-phase hydrodynamics modeling.