Determination of the Total Vapor Pressure of Hydrophobic Deep Eutectic Solvents: Experiments and Perturbed-Chain Statistical Associating Fluid Theory Modeling

Head-space gas chromatography mass spectrometry (HS-GC-MS) was used for the first time to measure the total vapor pressure of hydrophobic deep eutectic solvents (DESs). The new method was developed as a valid alternative for thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), as TGA did not allow obtaining reliable total vapor pressure data for the hydrophobic DESs studied in this work. The main advantage of HS-GC-MS is that the partial pressure of each DES constituent and the contribution of each DES constituent to the total vapor pressure of the mixture can be measured. The results give a clear indication of the interactions occurring between the DES constituents. Also, activity coefficients, enthalpies of evaporation, and activation energies for fluid displacement were obtained and correlated to the measured vapor pressure data. It was confirmed that the total vapor pressures of the hydrophobic DESs are very low in comparison to vapor pressures of commonly used volatile organic solvents like toluene. The total vapor pressures of the hydrophobic DESs were successfully predicted with perturbed-chain statistical associating fluid theory (PC-SAFT) when using PC-SAFT parameters for the individual DES constituents.