Thermodynamics Research Center / ThermoML | Fluid Phase Equilibria

ABSTRACT

In this study the solid-liquid equilibria (SLE) of 15 binary mixtures composed of one of three different symmetrical quaternary ammonium chlorides and one of five different fatty acids were measured. The experimental data obtained showed extreme negative deviations to ideality causing large melting-temperature depressions (up to 300K) that are characteristic for deep eutectic systems. The experimental data revealed that cross-interactions between quaternary ammonium salt and fatty acid increase with increasing alkyl chain length of the quaternary ammonium chloride and with increasing chain length of the carboxylic acid. The pronounced decrease of melting temperatures in these deep eutectic systems is mainly caused by strong hydrogen-bonding interactions, and thermodynamic modeling required an approach that takes hydrogen bonding into account. Thus, the measured phase diagrams were modelled with perturbed-chain statistical associating theory based on the classical molecular homonuclear approach. The model showed very good agreement with the experimental data using a semi-predictive modeling approach, in which binary interaction parameters between quaternary ammonium chloride and carboxylic acid correlated with chain length of the components. This supports the experimental findings on the phase behavior and interactions present in these systems and it allows estimating eutectic points of such highly non-ideal mixtures.