Vapor-liquid equilibrium azeotrope

To achieve a reliable fitting of the required parameters over the entire range of concentration and temperature, a simultaneous fitting to all reliable thermodynamic data (vapor/liquid equilibrium, azeotropic data, excess enthalpy, actuivity coefficients, liquid/liquid equilibria) should be performed. 

VL = vapor-liquid equilibrium data MS = mutual solubility data AZ = azeotropic data... 

Multicomponent distillations are more complicated than binary systems due primarily to the actual or potential involvement or interaction of one or more components of the multicomponent system on other components of the mixture. These interactions may be in the form of vapor-liquid equilibriums such as azeotrope formation, or chemical reaction, etc., any of which may affect the activity relations, and hence deviations from ideal relationships. For example, some systems are known to have two azeotrope combinations in the distillation column. Sometimes these, one or all, can be broken or changed in the vapor pressure relationships by addition of a third chemical or hydrocarbon. 

Example 4.5 2-Propanol (isopropanol) and water form an azeotropic mixture at a particular liquid composition that results in the vapor and liquid compositions being equal. Vapor-liquid equilibrium for 2-propanol-water mixtures can be predicted by the Wilson equation. Vapor pressure coefficients in bar with temperature in Kelvin for the Antoine equation are given in Table 4.113. Data for the Wilson equation are given in Table 4.126. Assume the gas constant R = 8.3145 kJ-kmol 1-K 1. Determine the azeotropic composition at 1 atm. 

Pervaporation. Pervaporation differs from the other membrane processes described so far in that the phase-state on one side of the membrane is different from that on the other side. The term pervaporation is a combination of the words permselective and evaporation. The feed to the membrane module is a mixture (e.g. ethanol-water mixture) at a pressure high enough to maintain it in the liquid phase. The liquid mixture is contacted with a dense membrane. The other side of the membrane is maintained at a pressure at or below the dew point of the permeate, thus maintaining it in the vapor phase. The permeate side is often held under vacuum conditions. Pervaporation is potentially useful when separating mixtures that form azeotropes (e.g. ethanol-water mixture). One of the ways to change the vapor-liquid equilibrium to overcome azeotropic behavior is to place a membrane between the vapor and liquid phases. Temperatures are restricted to below 100°C, and as with other liquid membrane processes, feed pretreatment and membrane cleaning are necessary. 

Membranes can also be used to alter the vapor-liquid equilibrium behavior and allow separation of azeotropes. The liquid mixture is fed to one side of the membrane, and the permeate is held under conditions to maintain it in the vapor phase. Most separations use hydrophyllic membranes that preferentially pass water rather than organic material. Thus, pervaporation is commonly used for the dehydration of organic components. 

There are two main issues concerning the chemistry of the reaction and the separation. One is how to separate the hydriodic acid and sulfuric acid produced by the Bunsen reaction. The other is how to carry out the hydrogen iodide (HI) decomposition section, where the presence of azeotrope in the vapor-liquid equilibrium of the hydriodic acid makes the energy-efficient separation of HI from its aqueous solution difficult, and also, the unfavorable reaction equilibrium limits the attainable conversion ratio of HI to a low level, around 20%. 

Vapor-liquid equilibrium compositions, K-values, activity coeff., etc., azeotrope temperature and composition, enthalpy and heat capacity, heats of vaporization... 

The topic covered in the 10 papers of the first section is commonly referred to as salt effect in vapor-liquid equilibrium and is potentially of great industrial importance. This salt effect leads to extractive distillation processes in which a dissolved salt replaces a liquid additive as the separating agent the replacement often results in a greatly improved separating ability and reduced energy requirements. Two papers in this volume, those by Sloan and by Vaillancourt, illustrate the use of such processing to concentrate nitric acid from its aqueous azeotrope. Nevertheless, the effect has not been exploited by industry to nearly the extent that would seem to be merited by its scientific promise. 

The use of a dissolved salt in place of a liquid component as the separating agent in extractive distillation has strong advantages in certain systems with respect to both increased separation efficiency and reduced energy requirements. A principal reason why such a technique has not undergone more intensive development or seen more than specialized industrial use is that the solution thermodynamics of salt effect in vapor-liquid equilibrium are complex, and are still not well understood. However, even small amounts of certain salts present in the liquid phase of certain systems can exert profound effects on equilibrium vapor composition, hence on relative volatility, and on azeotropic behavior. Also extractive and azeotropic distillation is not the only important application for the effects of salts on vapor-liquid equilibrium while used as examples, other potential applications of equal importance exist as well. 

Separation processes which involve non-volatile salts arise in two situations. First, as an alternative to extractive or azeotropic distillation, salts may be added to a system to alter the vapor-liquid equilibrium behavior. Second, there are cases where a salt is generated in the process before final product purification. For example, product streams from processes involving esterification, etherification, or neutralization contain salts and are often fed to separation units such as distillation or stripping columns. 

Vapor-liquid equilibrium data at atmospheric pressure (690-700 mmHg) for the systems consisting of ethyl alcohol-water saturated with copper(II) chloride, strontium chloride, and nickel(II) chloride are presented. Also provided are the solubilities of each of these salts in the liquid binary mixture at the boiling point. Copper(II) chloride and nickel(II) chloride completely break the azeotrope, while strontium chloride moves the azeotrope up to richer compositions in ethyl alcohol. The equilibrium data are correlated by two separate methods, one based on modified mole fractions, and the other on deviations from Raoult s Law. 

Tables of azeotropes and nonazeotropes compiled by L. H. Horsley and coworkers at the Dow Chemical Co. Included are a formula index, a bibliography, and three articles, "Vapor-Liquid Equilibrium Diagrams of Alcohol-Ketone Azeotropes as a Function of Pressure, ...

Minimum boiling point azeotrope with no data given Vapor-liquid equilibrium data are given in the original reference Azeotropic concentration is given in volume per cent. Unless so indicated, all concentrations are weight per cent Pressure in mm. of mercury absolute Approximate Greater than Less than... 

Vapor-Liquid Equilibrium Diagrams of Alcohol-Ketone Azeotropes as a Function of Pressure... 

Pressure has a marked effect on the azeotropic composition and vapor-liquid equilibrium diagrams of alcohol-ketone systems (J). This is due to the fact that the slopes of the vapor pressure curves of alcohols are appreciably greater than for ketones it results in an unusually larger change in the relative boiling points of the components of an alcohol-ketone system with change in pressure. 

Figure 14.11 The critical locus for (xiQHp + x2C6F6), a system with a maximum boiling azeotrope. In (A), the circles represent the critical points (a and b) of pure components (1) and (2) the solid lines represent (vapor + liquid) equilibrium for the pure substances the dashed line is the critical locus, and the short-dashed line represents the azeotrope composition, which intersects the critical locus at point c. (B) shows the intersection of the (vapor + liquid) equilibrium lines with the critical locus.

Several hundred plants have been installed for the dehydration of ethanol by pervaporation. This is a particularly favorable application for pervaporation because ethanol forms an azeotrope with water at 95 % and a 99.5 % pure product is needed. Because the azeotrope forms at 95 % ethanol, simple distillation does not work. A comparison of the separation of ethanol and water obtained by various pervaporation membranes and the vapor-liquid equilibrium line that controls separation obtained by distillation is shown in Figure 9.9 [40], The membranes... 

The vapor-liquid equilibrium for the nitric acid / water system at atmospheric pressure is shown in Figure 9.4. This figure shows that a concentration of 68.4 weight % nitric acid is the maximum (i.e., the azeotropic point) that can be obtained by simple distillation of the weak acid220. 

Summing up, the influence of the kinetics of a chemical reaction on the vapor-liquid equilibrium is very complex. Physical distillation boundaries may disappear, while new kinetic stable and unstable nodes may appear. As result, the residue curve map with chemical reaction could look very different from the physical plots. As a consequence, evaluating the kinetic effects on residue curve maps is of great importance for conceptual design of reactive distillation systems. However, if the reaction rate is high enough such that the chemical equilibrium is reached quickly, the RCM simplifies considerably. But even in this case the analysis may be complicated by the occurrence of reactive azeotropes. 

There is a considerable amount of experimentaldata for properties of mixtures wherein toluene is a principal constituent. Compilations and bibliographies exist for vapor—liquid equilibrium measurements (9,10), liquid—liquid equilibrium measurements (11), and azeotropic data (12,13). 

From the isothermal vapor-liquid equilibrium data for the ethanol(l)/toluene(2) system given in Table 1.11, calculate (a) vapor composition, assuming that the liquid phase and the vapor phase obey Raoult s and Dalton s laws, respectively, (b) the values of the infinite-dilution activity coefficients, Y and y2°°, (c) Van Laar parameters using data at the azeotropic point as well as from the infinite-dilution activity coefficients, and (d) Wilson parameters using data at the azeotropic point as well as from the infinite-dilution activity coefficients. 

Related Calculations. These calculations show how to use vapor-liquid equilibrium data to obtain parameters for activity-coefficient correlations such as those of Van Laar and Wilson. (Use of liquid-liquid equilibrium data for the same purpose is shown in Example 1.20.) If the system forms an azeotrope, the parameters can be obtained from a single measurement of the azeotropic pressure and the composition of the constant boiling mixture. If the activity coefficients at infinite dilution are available, the two parameters for the Van Laar equation are given directly, and the two in the case of the Wilson equation can be solved for as shown in the example. 

For example, suppose there is a stream in the process that is a binary mixture of chemical components A and B. If these components obey ideal vapor-liquid equilibrium behavior, we can use a single distillation column to separate them. If they form an azeotrope, we may have to use a two-column separation scheme. If the azeotropic composition... 

FIG. 13-8 Vapor-liquid equilibrium data for an n-butanol-water system at 101.3 kPa (1 atm) phase splitting and heterogeneous-azeotrope formation. 

To illustrate how large the effect of a dissolved salt can be, Figure 2, calculated from the data of Meranda and Furter (I), is included to demonstrate by how much potassium acetate alters the vapor-liquid equilibrium relationship of the system, boiling ethanol-water at atmospheric pressure. The dotted curve represents the ethanol-water system alone, where the azeotrope occurs at about 87 mole % ethanol. The other curves are for various concentrations of potassium acetate, and all are... 

Donald F. Othmer while at Eastman Kodak during the 1920 s experimented using salts to concentrate acetic acid (14). He also developed an industrial process for distilling acetone from its azeotrope with methanol by passing a concentrated calcium chloride brine down the rectification column (15). Pure acetone was condensed overhead, and acetone-free methanol was recovered in a separate still from the brine which was then recycled. The improved Othmer recirculation still (16) has been the apparatus generally favored by investigators who have studied the effects of salts on vapor-liquid equilibrium. 

So that an azeotrope with acetone does not form, the alcohol used must have a high enough boiling point. This requirement is reliably established only if vapor-liquid equilibrium data for at least two, preferably three, of the members of the series with acetone are known. The Pierotti-Deal-Derr method (4) (discussed later) or the Tassios-Van Winkle method (5) can be used in this case. In the latter method a log-log plot of y°i vs. P°i should yield a straight line. Figure 1 presents results for n-alco-hols and benzene from the isobaric (760 mm Hg) data of Wehe and Coates (6). Reliable infinite dilution activity coefficients are established for the other n-alcohols from data for at least two, and preferably three, of them. These y° values are used with equations like those of Van Laar or Wilson (7) to generate activity coefficients at intermediate compositions and to check for an existing azeotrope or a difficult separation (x-y curve close to the 45° line). 

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