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

ABSTRACT

Ethylbenzene and styrene are currently separated by ordinary fractional distillation, which is challenging due the low relative volatility of this mixture of 1.3 to 1.4. Extractive distillation is a promising alternative to save capital and operational expenditures. Recently, ionic liquids (ILs) have been reported as a promising option to replace commonly used organic solvents like sulfolane. The IL 4- methyl-N-butylpyridinium tetrafluoroborate ([4-mebupy]- [BF4]) is an IL with a strong effect on the relative volatility of the ethylbenzene/styrene mixture. In this work, binary VLE data in the range of (3 to 30) kPa, ternary VLE data at (5, 10, and 15) kPa, and binary LLE data at (313.2, 333.2, and 353.2) K have been determined for the system (ethylbenzene + styrene + [4-mebupy][BF4]). The ternary VLE experiments show that [4- mebupy][BF4] can enhance the relative volatility up to 2.7 to 2.8, and thereby [4-mebupy][BF4] has a stronger effect on the relative volatility than the benchmark solvent sulfolane, which can increase the relative volatility up to 2.3. Therefore, [4- mebupy][BF4] is a promising solvent for use in extractive distillation to separate ethylbenzene from styrene. The binary and ternary VLE data were correlated separately with the NRTL model and were regressed both together with the binary LLE data. The NRTL model could describe both data sets properly. The ternary VLE data could not be properly calculated by the binary NRTL parameters determined solely from the binary systems.