Vapor Liquid Equilibrium at High Pressure

Abstract

Vapor-liquid, phase-equilibrium data at elevated tempera- tures and pressures are necessary for the design of high pressure distillation processes, and in other fields of mod- ern chemical engineering. At Yale University, research be- ing conducted on the two-phase hydration of olefins has fostered interest in the vapor-liquid phase equilibria for the systems ethanol-water and 2-propanol-water; such data are necessary for the prediction of the equilibrium compo- sitions in the hydration of ethylene and propylene, respec- tively. The determination of these data will also give ex- perimental checks on various methods of calculation of relevant thermodynamic data, of great interest because of the departure of these systems from ideality. This experi- mental work, accordingly, adds to the supply of fundamen- tal data, which, when sufficiently complete information is available, will allow accurate thermodynamic prediction of such reactions. Previous studies of I. vapor-liquid phase equilibrium for the systems ethanol-water and 2-propanol-water are re- ported in Table I and of the vapor pressure of 2-propanol in Table 11. The aim of this current experimental work was to enlarge the amount of data for the ethanol-water system obtained by Griswold, Haney, and Klein (24), and to extend the study of the isothermal vapor-liquid equilibrium for the systems ethanol-water and 2-propanol-water up to condi- tions approaching as closely as possible the critical point of pure water. The data of the investigators mentioned were to be used to check the operation of the equipment.