Determination of binary vapor-liquid equilibria (VLE) of three fast reacting esterification systems

The simulation and safe layout of a reactive distillation process requires the knowledge of the chemical reaction and separate binary phase equilibrium data. The latter are difficult to obtain experimentally since the products of reaction affect the binary equilibrium as soon as they are formed. With the apparatus constructed and the modeling method described, the binary vapor-liquid equilibria (VLE) are obtained for systems with reaction rates showing half-life times of 30 min and below. Results for the binary VLE are presented for compounds of methanol and ethanol with formic acid at 313-333 K and isopropanol with formic acid at 313-353 K. The proposed method can be applied to obtain binary interaction parameters of reactive compounds for commonly used g(E)-models, if the half-life time of the non-catalyzed reaction at the desired temperature is above 10 min. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.