(378f) Vapor-Liquid Equilibria for Selected Binary Systems 2-Methyltetrahydrofuran + Alkane

Methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE), petroleum-based additives, and first-generation biofuels synthesized from edible biomass feedstock have been used as fuel additives. However, MTBE has the problem of contaminating drinking water due to its high solubility in water, petroleum-based additives deplete oil resources, and first-generation biofuels conflict with the food market. 2-Methyltetrahydrofuran (2-MeTHF) is one of the second generation biofuels, a compound that can be synthesized in a low environmental impact process from non-edible biomass materials [1-3]. One of potential application of 2-MeTHF is a greener fuel additive [4]. In this consideration, it is necessary to understand the change in fuel volatility [5], in other words, vapor-liquid equilibria (VLE), as a function of the amount of 2-MeTHF added.

In this work, we focused on binary systems 2-MeTHF + alkane, and experimentally determined VLE data at pressures of 40.00 - 101.3 kPa by the ebulliometric method [6]. Alkanes considered in this work are hexane, octane, and decane. Experimental VLE data were correlated by using the NRTL equation. Group contribution methods, i.e., ASOG and modified UNIFAC (Dortmund), were also tested for the predictions of VLE. The predicted results for the system 2-MeTHF + octane were almost identical to the experimental data. However, for the system 2-MeTHF + decane, deviations between the experimental and predicted values were observed in the 2-MeTHF low composition region.

References

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