Isobaric vapour-liquid-liquid equilibrium and vapour-liquid equilibrium for the system water + ethanol + iso-octane at 101.3 kPa

Abstract

Many studies have been carried out in the heterogeneous azeotropic distillation field either by experiment or by simulation. The development of all these studies requires the use of sets of isobaric vapour–liquid–liquid equilibrium (VLLE) data. However, the number of ternary systems with experimental VLLE data is very limited, since it is difficult to find a useful equipment to determine them. One of the most successful applications of the heterogeneous azeotropic distillation is the dehydration of ethanol to obtain absolute alcohol (Pham and Doherty, 1990) using an entrainer. Many different entrainers have been tried in order to improve this process. For example, the use of a hydrocarbon, such as 2,2,4-trimethylpentane (iso-octane), could be of considerable interest to the ethanol dehydration for use in gasohol production (Furzer, 1985).