Activity coefficient multicomponent excess Gibbs energy

Appendix A9.2 Multicomponent Excess Gibbs Energy (Activity Coefficient) Models... 

The local composition model (LCM) is an excess Gibbs energy model for electrolyte systems from which activity coefficients can be derived. Chen and co-workers (17-19) presented the original LCM activity coefficient equations for binary and multicomponent systems. The LCM equations were subsequently modified (1, 2) and used in the ASPEN process simulator (Aspen Technology Inc.) as a means of handling chemical processes with electrolytes. The LCM activity coefficient equations are explicit functions, and require computational methods. Due to length and complexity, only the salient features of the LCM equations will be reviewed in this paper. The Aspen Plus Electrolyte Manual (1) and Taylor (21) present the final form of the LCM binary and multicomponent equations used in this work. 

The expression for the excess Gibbs energy is built up from the usual NRTL equation normalized by infinite dilution activity coefficients, the Pitzer-Debye-Hiickel expression and the Born equation. The first expression is used to represent the local interactions, whereas the second describes the contribution of the long-range ion-ion interactions. The Bom equation accounts for the Gibbs energy of the transfer of ionic species from the infinite dilution state in a mixed-solvent to a similar state in the aqueous phase [38, 39], In order to become applicable to reactive absorption, the Electrolyte NRTL model must be extended to multicomponent systems. The model parameters include pure component dielectric constants of non-aqueous solvents, Born radii of ionic species and NRTL interaction parameters (molecule-molecule, molecule-electrolyte and electrolyte-electrolyte pairs). 

The activity coefficient of a component in a mixture is a function of the temperature and the concentration of that component in the mixture. When the concentration of the component proaches zero, its activity coefficient approaches the limiting activity coefficient of th component in the mixture, or the activity coefficient at infinite dilution, y . The limiting activity coefficient is useful for several reasons. It is a strictly dilute solution property and can be used dir tly in nation 1 to determine the equilibrium compositions of dilute mixtures. Thus, there is no reason to extrapolate uilibrium data at mid-range concentrations to infinite dilution, a process which may introduce enormous errors. Limiting activity coefficients can also be used to obtain parameters for excess Gibbs energy expressions and thus be used to predict phase behavior over the entire composition range. This technique has been shown to be quite accurate in prediction of vapor-liquid equilibrium of both binary and multicomponent mixtures (5). 

In chemical systems of interest, we usually have more than two components. In this section we will briefly explore the extension of the activity coefficient models above to multicomponent systems. We begin with an extension of the two-suffix Margules equation to a ternary system. The excess Gibbs energy is written as follows ... 

Since fugacity is defined at the same temperature as the reference state, it is often useful to determine the temperature dependence of the activity coefficients through the excess Gibbs energy. The fundamental property relationship for multicomponent systems can be written for excess functions. For excess Gibbs energy, we get ... 

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