Measuring vapor and liquid concentrations for binary and ternary systems in a microbubble distillation unit via gas sensors

Abstract

A cost effective, fast, and accurate technique was needed to measure the vapor composition of a binary system (ethanol-water) and also that of a liquid composition in a ternary system (acetic acid-acetol-water) in a microbubble distillation unit. Cheap TGS-series gas sensors were used for this purpose with both calibrations and measurements carried out in a specially designed chamber. A single parameter polynomial regression was fitted to the binary system, and a two parameter polynomial with an interaction term was fitted to the ternary system. The correlation coefficient, R-squared, was found to be greater than 0.99 for both systems, thus validating the implementation of this novel sensor.