Water azeotropes

An azeotropic mixture con tains two or more substances that distill together at a con stant boiling point The benzene-water azeotrope contains 9% water and boils at 69 C... 

Most, if not all, of the acetonitrile that was produced commercially in the United States in 1995 was isolated as a by-product from the manufacture of acrylonitrile by propylene ammoxidation. The amount of acetonitrile produced in an acrylonitrile plant depends on the ammoxidation catalyst that is used, but the ratio of acetonitrile acrylonitrile usually is ca 2—3 100. The acetonitrile is recovered as the water azeotrope, dried, and purified by distillation (28). U.S. capacity (1994) is ca 23,000 t/yr. 

The reactor effluent, containing 1—2% hydrazine, ammonia, sodium chloride, and water, is preheated and sent to the ammonia recovery system, which consists of two columns. In the first column, ammonia goes overhead under pressure and recycles to the anhydrous ammonia storage tank. In the second column, some water and final traces of ammonia are removed overhead. The bottoms from this column, consisting of water, sodium chloride, and hydrazine, are sent to an evaporating crystallizer where sodium chloride (and the slight excess of sodium hydroxide) is removed from the system as a soHd. Vapors from the crystallizer flow to the hydrate column where water is removed overhead. The bottom stream from this column is close to the hydrazine—water azeotrope composition. Standard materials of constmction may be used for handling chlorine, caustic, and sodium hypochlorite. For all surfaces in contact with hydrazine, however, the preferred material of constmction is 304 L stainless steel. 

Anhydrous hydrazine, required for propellant appHcations and some chemical syntheses, is made by breaking the hydrazine—water azeotrope with aniline. The bottom stream from the hydrate column (Fig. 4) is fed along with aniline to the azeotrope column. The overhead aniline—water vapor condenses and phase separates. The lower aniline layer returns to the column as reflux. The water layer, contaminated with a small amount of aniline and hydrazine, flows to a biological treatment pond. The bottoms from the azeotrope column consist of aniline and hydrazine. These are separated in the final hydrazine column to give an anhydrous overhead the aniline from the bottom is recycled to the azeotrope column. 

Pervaporation is a relatively new process with elements in common with reverse osmosis and gas separation. In pervaporation, a liquid mixture contacts one side of a membrane, and the permeate is removed as a vapor from the other. Currendy, the only industrial application of pervaporation is the dehydration of organic solvents, in particular, the dehydration of 90—95% ethanol solutions, a difficult separation problem because an ethanol—water azeotrope forms at 95% ethanol. However, pervaporation processes are also being developed for the removal of dissolved organics from water and the separation of organic solvent mixtures. These applications are likely to become commercial after the year 2000. 

Liquid pyridine and alkylpyridines are considered to be dipolar, aprotic solvents, similar to dimethylformarnide or dimethyl sulfoxide. Most pyridines form a significant azeotrope with water, allowing separation of mixtures of pyridines by steam distillation that could not be separated by simple distillation alone. The same azeotropic effect with water also allows rapid drying of wet pyridines by distillation of a small forecut of water azeotrope. 

Compound CAS Registry Number Stmcture number Mol wt Freezing point, °C Boiling point, °C Density, Index of refraction. Water solubility at 20°C, g/100 ml. 20°C, in C water Water azeotrope Bp °C Water, % ... 

Fig. 5. The acetone—2-propanol—water system where I represents the 2-propanol—water azeotrope, (a) Residue curve map (34) (b) material balance lines...

Podebush Sequence forPthanol—Water Separation. When ethyl acetate is used as the entrainer to break the ethanol—water azeotrope the residue curve map is similar to the one shown in Figure 21d, ie, the ternary azeotrope is homogeneous. Otherwise the map is the same as for ethanol—water—benzene. In such... 

In Region II, the high- and low-boihng nodes are MIPK and the MEK-water azeotrope, respectively. The more complicated cyclo-hexane-ethanol-water system (Fig. 13-58c) has three separatrices and three regions, all of which share the ternaiy azeotrope as the low-boiling node. 

An important characteristic of pervaporation that distinguishes it from distillation is that it is a rate process, not an equilibrium process. The more permeable component may be the less-volatile component. Perv oration has its greatest iitihty in the resolution of azeotropes, as an acqiinct to distillation. Selecting a membrane permeable to the minor corTiponent is important, since the membrane area required is roughly proportional to the mass of permeate. Thus pervaporation devices for the purification of the ethanol-water azeotrope (95 percent ethanol) are always based on a hydrophihc membrane. 

Epoxybutane [106-88-7] M 72.1, b 66.4-66.6 , d 0.837, n 1.3841. Dried with CaS04, and fractionally distd through a long (126cm) glass helices-packed column. The first fraction contains a water azeotrope. 

Soya oil, 88.6 g, 20.0 g of pentaerythritol, and 0.06 g of lithium hydroxide monohydrate are weighed into a 250-mL three-necked round-bottom flask fitted with a magnetic stirrer, a Dean-Stark separator, and nitrogen inlet and outlet. The reaction mixture is heated to 250°C for 30 min under nitrogen (note a below), then cooled to 200°C. Phthalic anhydride, 34.6 g, 0.70 g of maleic anhydride, and 8.0 g of xylene are added. The reaction mixture is heated to 230°C and the toluene-water azeotrope is removed by distillation. The reaction is stopped when the acid number of reaction medium is lower than 10 (note b below). After cooling to room temperature, 52 g of white spirit is added. 

---