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

ABSTRACT

The separation of butyl acetate from aqueous solution by distillation is energy-consuming. However, azeotropic distillation may be a commercially economical way when cyclohexane is added as an entrainer. The vapor liquid equilibria (VLE) data were measured by the quasi-static ebulliometric method for the following systems at (29.77, 58.85, and 87.65) kPa: (1) butyl acetate + cyclohexane; (2) water + butyl acetate + ethanol; (3) water + butyl acetate + cyclohexane; (4) water + ethanol + butyl acetate + cyclohexane. The VLE data for binary and ternary systems were used to regress the nonrandom two-liquid (NRTL) interaction parameters, namely, pairs of butyl acetate cyclohexane and water butyl acetate, with aid of Aspen Plus platform. The newly regressed parameters were verified by the comparison between predicted VLE values and experimental data for ternary and quaternary systems without parametrization. The average relative deviations are only 0.19 % and 0.17 %, respectively. Furthermore, the NRTL thermodynamic model with new parameters was applied to construct the distillation residue curve map for the water + butyl acetate + cyclohexane ternary system, which provides the VLE information for the production of the butyl acetate by new azeotropic distillation.