ß-Damascenone Highly Diluted in Hydroalcoholic Mixtures: Phase Equilibrium Measurements, Thermodynamic Modeling, and Simulation of a Batch Distillation

Abstract

ß-Damascenone is a carotenoid-derived compound that plays a key role in the characteristic aroma of wines and distilled spirits. Despite the valuable contribution of this compound to the flavor quality of alcoholic beverages, little is known about its volatility and its vapor–liquid equilibrium behavior in hydroalcoholic mixtures of different compositions. Such information is essential to be able to choose the right thermodynamic model for ß-damascenone when using a distillation process simulation software to gain a better understanding of the behavior of ß-damascenone during spirit distillation. In this context, this work presents new experimental VLE data for ß-damascenone highly diluted in ethanol + water mixtures. The measurements were carried out in a recirculation ebulliometer operating at 101.3 kPa for ethanol mass fractions between (0.10 and 0.79) g·g–1. Activity coefficient model NRTL was used to correlate the experimental data and binary interaction parameters. The parameters obtained for the NRTL model were employed to simulate a laboratory-scale batch distillation of a model solution of ß-damascenone, ethanol, and water. The simulation results were well fitted to experimental data. This approach can be further extended to other compounds that contribute to the aroma of distilled spirits, and the results can be transferred to simulate larger scale distillations.