Thermodynamic model for biomass processing in pressure intensified technologies

MARIANA GONZÁLEZ PRIETO; FRANCISCO ADRIÁN SÁNCHEZ; SELVA PEREDA

JOURNAL OF SUPERCRITICAL FLUIDS

ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2014 vol. 96 p. 53 - 67

0896-8446

Pressure intensified technologies have a great potential in the context of biomass refining. A thermody-namic model able to predict phase behavior of typical mixtures found in biomass processing technologies,containing for instance hydrocarbons, organo-oxygenated compounds and water, is required for thedevelopment of a biorefinery process simulator. Moreover, the design of particular fuel/biofuel blendsalso requires the support of a thermodynamic model to predict the properties of the final products. Thesetypes of mixtures are highly non-ideal due to the presence of association and solvation effects. It hasalready been proved that the Group Contribution with Association Equation of State (GCA-EoS) is able topredict the complex phase behavior of mixtures containing natural products and biofuels. In the last fewyears, several contributions agree that 2,5-dimethylfuran has a great potential as a sugar-derived fueladditive. In this work, as a case study, we extend the GCA-EoS to represent the phase equilibria of furanderivatives with hydrocarbons and alcohols. In addition, we show that the GCA-EoS is able to predict,based on the performed parameterization, high pressure data of 2,5-hydroxymethylfurfural solubility inCO2and ethanol as co-solvent.