Modeling Phase Equilibria for Hydrogenation Processes under Near Critical Conditions

SELVA PEREDA; S.B. BOTTINI; E.A. BRIGNOLE

Aguas de Sao Pedro – Brasil

Conferencia; XIX Interamerican Congress of Chemical Engineering - XIII COBEQ - I Equifase.br.; 2000

Hydrogenation of vegetable oils in homogeneous solutions can be performed by the use of supercritical propane as a cosolvent. In this way mass transfer and hydrogen solubility limitations are eliminated and the speed of reaction and selectivity is greatly increased. The experimental data available for this type of ternary systems is very scarce. The GCA-EOS model is extended to predict the ternary phase diagrams, on the basis of binary information. The correlation of binary data is very good. The ternary predictions are applied to search for the region of complete miscibility. Several regions of one, two and three fluid phases are identified for the system sunflower oil - hydrogen - propane, depending on the phase composition, pressure and temperature of operation.