Prediction of Vapor - Liquid Equilibria of Aqueous Systems in The Subcritical Range by Using The NRTL Equation
Prediction of Vapor - Liquid Equilibria of Aqueous Systems in The Subcritical Range by Using The NRTL Equation
Prediction of Vapor - Liquid Equilibria of Aqueous Systems in The Subcritical Range by Using The NRTL Equation
Abstract
A method is proposed to predict vapor-liquid equilibria (VLE) of aqueous mixtures by using the NRTL equation.
The algorithm closely follows that reported in previous works dealing with predictions of VLE of non-aqueous
mixtures. The main assumptions are:
- simple rules can be derived for families of mixtures characterized by similar chemico-physical properties;
- within each family, the energy interaction parameters of the NRTL equation can be calculated by knowing only
the well-known properties of the pure compounds, such as the Hildebrand solubility parameters.
The main subdivision adopted in this work is between soluble mixtures and mixtures with a solubility gap. Soluble
mixtures are subdivided, in turn, into four sub-classes:
- H,O/C, -Cd alcohols;
- H,O/amines;
- H,O/heterocyclic compounds or amides;
- H,O/other polar compounds.
The method is applied to several binary mixtures which represent difficult cases, as strongly associated or highly
asymmetric systems. For some systems a comparison is made with the group contribution method. New relationships
which improve the prediction of VLE of non-aqueous systems are also reported.
Keywords: Theory; Excess functions; Prediction; Vapor-liquid equilibria; Water; Polar compounds
1. Introduction
Modern equations for calculating the non-ideality of a mixture in VLE based on the
non-random distribution of molecules in a fluid, such as the Wilson and NRTL equations, are
useful for two main reasons. Firstly, they enable, in a simple way, the prediction of multicompo-
nent VLE from knowledge of binary systems only. Secondly, the binary adjusting parameters
required to describe the deviations from Raoults law according to relations of the type
gE =_@I, x2, (52, 32,)
are linked to parameters which arise from the interaction forces acting between molecules. To
illustrate, for the NRTL equation
RT RT
The physical significance of the energy parameters in Eq. (3) was elucidated soon after the work
of Wilson by Prausnitz et al. (1967). Further, an important step toward prediction was made by
Tassios ( 1971) and Bruin ( 1971) who showed how g 11 and g,, can be calculated from the
vaporization enthalpy of pure components. As a result, the remaining unknown, g12, can be
calculated from one experimental datum only. Following similar concepts, it was also demon-
strated that the cross-interaction term can be evaluated with fair accuracy in the context of the
Heil and Prausnitz equation for several polar systems if the Hildebrand solubility parameters of
the mixture components are known (Vetere, 1977). Furtheremore, a recent work indicates that
the NRTL equation is inherently predictive, since both T12 and z21 can be calculated through
generalized correlations which are applicable to families of mixtures similar for their chemico-
physical properties (Vetere, 1993). If the literature data for non-aqueous systems are grouped in
five families, a relation of the type
2. Methods
The most obvious classification of the water/polar components mixtures in the literature is
into soluble mixtures and mixtures which exhibit a miscibility gap. However, soluble mixtures
encompass an exceeding variety of molecular structures which are responsible for the high
asymmetry (expressed as y T/y?) often found in systems belonging to this family. Since a single
procedure cannot take into account all types of non-ideality arising from relevant differences in
chemico-physical properties of components, the soluble mixtures have been subdivided into four
classes:
A. Vetere / Fluid Phase Equilibria 90 (1994) 63-74 65
2.1. Method A
This relies on a procedure developed by Vetere ( 1977). Basically, one assumes that the pure
component interaction parameters g 11 and g,, which appear in Eq. (3) can be calculated
according to the relation proposed by Tassios ( 1971) and Bruin and Prausnitz ( 1971) :
W2 - 263
wk=- M
Eq. (8) gives a value of zero for n-paraffins. The highest value of W, pertains to water (Vetere,
1989).
Although ~5~and d2 can be calculated easily in most cases, for some not weII studied
compounds it is more advisable to apply Eq. (8). W, was used to characterize amines. It was
found that for amine/water systems AM is related to W, of amine as follows:
AM=A2+BzWp (9)
The empirical constants of Eqs. (7) and (9) can be calculated by regressing the experimental data
of at least three systems pertaining to the considered family of mixtures.
66 A. Vetere / Fluid Phase Equilibria 90 (1994) 63-74
2.2. Method B
This nearly coincides with the method proposed by Vetere (1993). The working equation is
(g,, -_g,,) + (g,, -gz) = A3 + B3@: - S&s (10)
which represents only a slight modification of Eq. (4). Water is the component always present
in all the systems considered in this work. Accordingly, if the temperature range investigated is
not too large, 6i is nearly constant and can be incorporated in B3. By slight rearrangement, Eq.
( 10) becomes
t&2 - g, 1) + (&2 - g22) = A4 + B462 (11)
which proved useful for water/alcohol mixtures. The asymmetry of the system, 2i2/r2i, is the
second datum required to calculate gE. This parameter is constant within each family of
mixtures and can be determined empirically by correlating some literature systems.
3. Methodology
The methodology followed to predict the NRTL constants is the same as in the previous
paper (Vetere, 1993): (i) three well-studied isothermal systems are chosen for each family of
compounds; (ii) the experimental data of these systems are regressed to derive the optimized
values of r12 and z21; (iii) according to these values, a rule is derived for the asymmetry of this
family of compounds; (iv) a relation is found which links the sum Zi RTz, with the difference
(Pi - Pi), where P stands for a property of the pure components, such as the Hildebrand
solubility parameter or similar ones quoted in the previous sections. The last two rules are
assumed as valid for all the systems pertaining to the same family.
4. Results
The calculation of the pure component properties, such as the Hildebrand solubility parame-
ters and the vapor pressures, was performed according to the procedures reported in a previous
work (Vetere, 1993). The VLE data were taken from two monographs of the DECHEMA series
(Gmehling and Onken, 1977; Gmehling et al., 1981).
Table 1 reports the equations used to calculate the three empirical constants of the NRTL
equation. To have a complete layout of the methods, Table 1 reports also the equations which
enable the VLE calculations of non-aqueous systems. In some cases, these latter represent an
improvement over the equations previously proposed (Vetere, 1993). Major modifications are:
- a less rough rule to calculate the asymmetry of polar/non-polar systems which exhibit a
miscibility gap;
A. Vetere 1 Fluid Phase Equilibria 90 (1994) 63-74 67
Table 1
Equations for calculating the parameters of the NRTL equation
Mixtures with a c+r = 0.42 Mixtures with a a,, = 0.42; z = 0.72 + 0.0003 (g,, - g22)ab.
solubility gap r&1 = 2 miscibility gap
(index 1: the more polar compound)
RT(t,, + r2,) = 5060 - 2806,
RT(t,, + Q,)= -457 + 476.2(6, - SZ)sba
H,O/amines CZ,*= 0.1; A, = 630 - 5.375W,, Polar/polar mixtures tx,r = 0.2 + 0.063(6, -c&_
H,O/alcohols ~(,r = 0.3; g,, -g,, = - 100 cal mol- Nearly ideal mixtures a,* = 0.3; T,* = r*,
RT(r,, + r2,) = 2217 - 4.783W,, RT(r,, + To,) = 140 + 1.75(W,, - W,,).,
H,O/other polar = 200cal mol-
a,* = 0.3; g,, -g,, Mixtures of homologs CQ~= 0.3; T,* = r2,
compounds RT(r,,
+ T,*)
= 122 + 2.2(6: - a:),,, RT(r,, + r.2,) = -220 + 2.75(W,, - FVr&
an equation to calculate aU for polar/polar mixtures which avoids the discontinuities of the
previous method;
a bifurcation for nearly ideal mixtures which are now subdivided into mixtures of ho-
mologous compounds (as, for example, the acetone/diethyl ketone system) and mixtures of
compounds having different functional groups.
Tables 2-4 report the results obtained by applying the methods proposed in this work along
with the empirical constants of the NRTL equation and the correlating parameter used for each
system. The reliability of the methods applied to predict the VLE of aqueous mixtures is here
briefly discussed.
This family of mixtures has been predicted by using Eq. ( 11) of Method B for calculating the
sum RT(rr, + rzl). The second datum required to apply the method is asymmetry, expressed by
r12/r2, = 2, where the index 1 represents water. The results obtained are only fair, for both
pressures and vapor composition. As a rule, the more difficult cases are represented by highly
asymmetric systems.
This family encompasses four subclasses of mixtures, each of them deserving an ad hoc
prediction method as described below.
Table 2
Prediction of vapor-liquid equilibrium data for aqueous mixtures with a miscibility gap (index 1 = water)
Method A and aI2 = 0.1. The calculated pressure and temperatures are acceptable, but the vapor
compositions are predicted with a considerable error.
Table 3
Prediction of the vapor-liquid equilibrium data for miscible aqueous systems according to Method A (index
1 = water)
The strong asymmetry of many systems belonging to this family reflects, also on the reliability
of the method. The deviations from experimental values are often high for both pressures and
vapor compositions. However, the proposed procedure appears less sensitive to the proximity
effect than the group contribution method (see, for example, the data reported by Wu
and Sandler, 1989, for the systems l,Cdioxane/water and 1,3-dioxolane/water predicted with
UNIFAC).
Table 4
Prediction of the vapor-liquid equilibrium data for miscible aqueous systems according to Method B (index
1 = water)
w 20.2 1.8
The binary systems studied in this work represent a relatively narrow slice of the wide corpus
of literature data. Therefore, in order to avoid unsound conclusions on the reliability of the
proposed method it was deemed useful to restrict the choice of the VLE data to difficult
systems only, showing strong deviations from ideal behavior or abnormally high asymmetries.
For this reason, it is not surprising that the results obtained are often only fair. However, it
would be incorrect to assume that some significant errors found in predicting the VLE data of
the systems listed in Tables 2-4 prove the unreliability of the method. As it results from the data
of Tables 5 and 6, the predictions based on the NRTL equation compare favorably with those
Table 5
Comparison with UNIFAC in predicting the VLE of of some binary systems
1OOAY 1OOAY
:LHg)
a Fredenslund et al. (1977). b Wu and Sandler (1991). Gmehling et al. (1981). d Gmehling and Onken (1977).
Hansen et al. (1991). f Optimized data.
Table 6
Comparison with UNIFAC (GCM) in predicting infinite dilution activity coefficients a
of the UNIFAC method for alcohols and ketones, and are only slightly worse for water in
mixtures with some polar nitrogen compounds, It must be stressed that the VLE literature data
for the water/2_methylpyridine system, for which both methods give very inaccurate predictions,
appear questionable, since the limiting activity coefficients reported for this mixture in the
DECHEMA monograph (Gmehling and Onken, 1977) are unrealistic, being higher than those
pertaining to the water/2,6-dimethylpyridine system. Further, on the basis of the Table 6 data
the new method seems less sensitive to promixity effects than UNIFAC.
6. Conclusions
The multiplicity of procedures described in this work is a clear sign that the panacea of a
universal method which can face whatever type of non-ideality in VLE is not realistic
at present. Partial failures are the common fate of all predictive methods. The group contribu-
tion method (GCM), which still remains the preferred way to calculate VLE of molecules
made of well-studied functional groups, proves inadequate in dealing with complex molecular
structures, typically molecules bearing more than one strong polar functional group. The
adopted remedy of assuming as a group the molecule as a whole is a clear exception to the
assumptions of this method. As a result, the advantage of using the GCM is partially lost. The
main drawback of using the NRTL equation as a predictive tool lies in the subdivision of the
binary systems into families not always well defined, since the lines separating these families
from each other are in some instances unclear. However, the method proposed in this work is
simple and more general in principle than literature methods. For these reasons, it can be used
to solve at least some engineering problems in fluid phase separations when the GCM appears
unapplicable.
List of symbols
Greek letters
Subscripts
1 water
2 other component of the mixture
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