Liquid-liquid equilibrium study for ternary systems of water + propargyl alcohol + solvents at 308.2 K: Measurement and thermodynamic modelling

The liquid-liquid equilibrium data for the water + propargyl alcohol (PA) + solvents ternary system were measured at 308.2 K under 101.3 kPa, where solvents refer to ethyl acetate, methyl tert-butyl ether, methyl isobutyl carbinol and chloroform. The tie lines were displayed in ternary phase diagrams. The distribution coefficient and separation factor were calculated according to the measured tie-line data and employed to evaluate the capacity of solvents to extract PA from aqueous solution. The calculation results demonstrated that the selectivity was large enough for the extraction application. Meanwhile, the reliability of the experimental data was confirmed using the Othmer-Tobias and Hand equations. The UNIFAC model was applied for a comparison and predicting the LLE behaviors. The results indicated that the calculated data by UNIFAC model cannot agree well with the experimental ones. The NRTL and UNIQUAC models were used to correlate the experimental data and the binary interaction parameters were regressed. The root mean square deviations of the NRTL and UNIQUAC models were less than 0.6%, indicating that the LLE experimental data can be successfully correlated by the models.