Extractive separation of benzene and cyclohexane using 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium acetate

International Conference on Process Engineering and Advanced Materials 2018

Salleh, M. Zulhaziman M.^1 ; Hadj-Kali, Mohamed K.^2 ; Hashim, M.A.^1 ; Ali, Emad^2

University of Malaya Centre for Ionic Liquids (UMCiL), Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia^1

Chemical Engineering Department, King Saud University, P.O Box 800, Riyadh

11421, Saudi Arabia^2

关键词: Cross contamination;    Distribution ratio;    Extractive separation;    Feed concentration;    Liquid-liquid extraction;    Petrochemical industry;    Solvent recovery;    Ternary liquid-liquid equilibrium;   

Others  :  https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1757-899X/458/1/012067/pdf
DOI  :  10.1088/1757-899X/458/1/012067

来源: IOP

【 摘 要 】

Separation of benzene and cyclohexane is a challenging process in petrochemical industry due to the difficulty to separate them by a simple distillation. Recognizing ionic liquid as a potential alternative, this work investigated the performance of 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium acetate ([C4Mim][Ac]) as an extracting solvent in the separation of benzene and cyclohexane via liquid-liquid extraction. The ternary liquid-liquid equilibria for this IL with benzene and cyclohexane was investigated at 25°C and 1 atm, with feed concentration of benzene ranging from 10 to 60 wt %. Good agreement was achieved for the tie-lines obtained from the COSMO-RS model and experimental data. The NRTL model was successfully employed to correlate the experimental tie lines. The performance of [C4Mim][Ac] was compared with organic solvent and other ILs reported in literature. The selectivity and distribution ratio of benzene were in the range of 4.17-5.47 and 0.51-0.72, respectively. At equilibrium, no IL was present in the cyclohexane layer and the concentration of cyclohexane in the IL layer was very low. This observation indicated that there was minimum cross-contamination between the phases and less energy was required for solvent recovery.