Thermodynamics Research Center / ThermoML | Journal of Chemical and Engineering Data

ABSTRACT

The effect of three disolved salts, namely soldium chloride, sodium sulfate and magnesium sulfate on the liquid-liquid equilibrium of phenol extraction from aqueous phase by (Propan-2-yl) benzene (cumene) was investigated at temperature of 298.2 K and the ambient pressure of 81.5 kPa. Salts with mass fractions of 0.005 and 0.020 in water were used and significant enhancement in the phenol extraction was achieved compared with salt free system. Results showed that presence of salts caused the solute separation factor to reach as (46.29 and 95.81)% with NaCl, (63.52 and 165.19)% with Na2SO4 and (86.39 and 238.55)% with MgSO4, related to the used low and high salt concentrations. Therefore, the salting-out effect was appeared in the order of MgSO4 greater than Na2SO4 greater than NaCl, in agreement with the Hofmeister series. The Eisen-Joffe equation confirmed the consistency of experimental tie-line data. In order to correlate the obtained data, the well-known NRTL and UNIQUAC thermodynamic models were satisfactorily used and the maximum root-mean square deviations were as low as 0.0071 and 0.0013 for these models, respectively.