New fitting method for vapour-liquid equilibrium data and its application for ethanol-water distillation process modeling

Abstract

For modeling and simulation of distillation processes, the main information required is the vapour-liquid equilibrium (VLE) data. These are available as discrete values, but for modeling purpose, an analytical function would be more suitable. We developed a simple calculation protocol to obtain a single continuous function for the VLE curve on the entire concentration domain, without using thermodynamic functions. The fitting parameters of binary ethanol-water mixture VLE curve were determined. The methodology is suitable for fitting continuous functions on VLE data of any binary or multicomponent, non-ideal (even azeotropic) mixtures.