Phase behaviour and internal mechanism of action of two solvents for the separation of butanol isomers from industrial wastewater

Abstract

Industrial wastewater usually contains large amounts of butanols which form azeotropic mixtures with water. Efficiently and cleanly separating these azeotropes while saving energy is an urgent problem to solve. This study used two types of solvents to measure the ternary liquid-liquid equilibrium (LLE) data for extracting n-butanol, sec-butanol, and tert-butanol from water at 298.2 K and 101.3 kPa. The obtained data was correlated with NRTL and UNIQUAC models to obtain relevant binary interaction parameters. The reliability of the binary interaction parameters was verified using a Gibbs energy topology-based mixture surface analysis method. The root mean square deviations of the two models were less than 0.0061 and 0.0072, respectively, indicating that both the NRTL and UNIQUAC models could correlate the experimental data well. The extraction performance was evaluated using the distribution coefficient (D) and the separation factor (S). Isopentyl acetate showed better extraction performance, and the differences in the molecular structures of butanols also showed regularity during the extraction process. Combined with quantum chemistry calculations, the hydrogen bond donors and acceptors between six ternary systems were analyzed using the COSMO-SAC method. The intermolecular interaction energies were calculated using the Dmol3 module. Finally, through IGMH and AIM analysis, it was proved that the difference in hydrogen bond strength between isopentyl acetate/ethyl acetate and butanols with different molecular structures is the reason for this difference. This study provides basic data and parameters for the design of butanols extraction processes through a combination of experiments and quantum chemistry calculations.