Interfacial tension of ethanol, water, and their mixtures in high pressure carbon dioxide: Measurements and modeling

Abstract

Hypothesis.It is particularly noteworthy to study interfacial tension behavior under pressurized carbon dioxide for supercritical processes such as crystallization or fractionation. For the latter, a liquid phase and a supercritical phase are in contact, and interfacial properties influence mass transfer phenomena and hydrodynamics. Ethanol-water mixture is a good theoretical study case also involved in a wide range of applications. ExperimentalInterfacial tensions of ethanol, water and three mixtures, with an ethanol mass fraction from 0.25 to 0.75, under pressurized CO2 were measured for pressures ranging from 0.1 MPa to 15.1 MPa at 313.15 K and 333.15 K. A specific experimental set-up was used for CO2 phase saturation. FindingsThis work brings interfacial tension data of five different solutions including water and ethanol in contact with CO2. Effects of pressure, temperature, carbon dioxide density and ethanol mass fraction are discussed regarding the literature. Significant discrepancies are found with previous literature data for ethanol–water mixtures. The “two-step” decrease observed when pressure or density increase is also discussed regarding both the concept of Widom line, and the polar and dispersive contributions of the surface tension of a component. For the first time, fair accurate interfacial tension modeling involving these contributions is addressed.