Experimental and Computational Study on Liquid–Liquid Equilibrium in Ternary Systems of γ-Valerolactone, Toluene, and Hydrocarbons

Abstract

γ-Valerolactone is a biomass-derived compound widely applicable in chemical industry, especially as a solvent, additive to fuels, or precursor for other chemicals. In contrast with the industrial importance of γ-valerolactone, there is an insufficient number of mixture phase-equilibria in the literature. Therefore, the aim of this work was to measure liquid–liquid equilibrium data for ternary systems γ-valerolactone + toluene + hydrocarbon (hydrocarbons were n-heptane, n-decane, n-dodecane, and cyclohexane) by the direct analytical method at 298.15 K and 0.1 MPa. The obtained experimental data were processed and correlated by the nonrandom two-liquid (NRTL) model. The NRTL binary parameters between γ-valerolactone and toluene were evaluated from the measured ternary liquid–liquid equilibrium data, whereas the other binary parameters were obtained by regression of binary liquid–liquid equilibrium data or vapor–liquid equilibrium and excess enthalpy data taken from literature. The predictive performance of ...