Toluene recovery from a ternary mixture of toluene-ethanol-water via heterogeneous azeotropic distillation.

SILVIO NICOLAS LATINI SPAHN; MARTÍN SEBASTIÁN GROSS

Buenos Aires

Congreso; 11th World Congress of Chemical Engineering; 2023

AAIQ

Liquid-liquid-vapor equilibrium of toluene-ethanol-water system was studied. The most common industrial application of this ternary system is ethanol dehydration using toluene as an entrainer. In this case, it is intended to recover the aromatic compound that is in a waste mixture originated in routine laboratory analysis, that has an estimated molar composition of 45% toluene, 45% ethanol, and 10% water. UNIQUAC and NRTL liquid phase activity coefficient models were found to be capable of describing the partial miscibility between liquid phases and the existence of different azeotropes. Nonlinear regressions of experimental data have been performed to obtain the best set of binary coefficients values, that accurately represent the complex nature of this system. Distillation column simulations were carried out using UniSim Design® software to determine the feasibility of the planned separation. Distillation runs were carried out to compare the results obtained in the simulation stage.