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Research Article
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Calculation of Critical Curves for Carbon Dioxide+n-Alkane Systems |
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Jinglin Yu,
Shujun Wang ,
Yiling Tian
and
Wei Xu
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ABSTRACT
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The critical curves of eight binary systems from carbon dioxide+methane to carbon dioxide+octane at temperatures from 200 to 570 K and pressures from 2.5 to 14.7 MPa have bee calculated. The critical pressures, the critical temperatures, the critical mole fractions, the critical molar volumes and the critical densities are obtained by using an Equation of State (EOS), which consists of a hard body repulsion term and an additive perturbation term. The latter term accounts for the attractive molecular interactions and uses a square-well potential, so three adjustable parameters are required. Good agreement was obtained between the experimental data, the literature data and the calculated values.
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Introduction High pressure vapor-liquid equilibria of carbon dioxide+hydrocarbon systems have been widely investigated. Since the mid-1980s, supercritical (SC) CO2+lower molecular weight alkanes or alcohols systems have been of interest because of their importance of SC fluids and cosolvent pairs in the separation of biomaterials (Fornari, 1990; Dohrn, 1995; Christov and Dohrn, 2002). The calculation of critical curves for binary mixtures is very important in the study of phase equilibria. Critical states of mixtures are of interest for a number of reasons. They delineate the homogeneous and heterogeneous regions. They are also used in numerous correlations for the properties of mixtures. They are intricately connected with retrograde phenomena. Measurements of critical points are very difficult. Therefore, they are often determined from thermodynamic models using phase equilibrium parameters. A robust method for this task is a powerful tool for the calculation of critical loci. Early theoretical discussions by van der Waals on critical phenomena in pure and mixed fluids were instrumental in encouraging many researchers in the latter part of the last century to undertake experimental work in this field (Van der Waal, 1900). Scott and Van Konynenburg (1970) have classified critical curves using the van der Waals equation for nonpolar components. Schneider (1978) and Rowlinson and Swinton (1978) have published a comprehensive discussion on the classification of critical curves for binary systems. Although there is a great deal of literatures describing the measurements of critical points, the calculation of critical curves for SC CO2+lower molecular n-alkanes has not been reported in detail. Especially, the data of critical molar volume and critical densities are absent. Neichel and Franck (1996) have calculated the critical curves of several binary systems by means of the Heilig-Franck Equation of State (EOS). Tian et al. (2003) have calculated the critical curves for supercritical CO2+1-alkanol systems. Many equations of state have been proposed and applied in the past. In this study, the Heilig-Franck EOS is employed in which only three adjustable parameters are required and the experimental data are not required.
Equation of State and Thermodynamic Relations
To predict the gas-liquid critical curves of binary mixtures under high
temperatures and pressures, an appropriate equation of state (Heilig-Franck
EOS) was derived from a perturbation method by using a square-well molecular
interaction potential. Employing a hard body repulsion term and an additive
perturbation term, the pressure is given by
where the Bx and Cx parameters are the second and third virial coefficients of a square-well fluid and βx represents the molecular volume of the fluid. Vm is the molar volume of the mixture and xi is the molar fraction of component i. Each of the molecular terms can be given by where Tc,i is the critical temperature of component i and m is a temperature-dependent exponent. The applicability of this relationship is limited to a region of relatively high temperatures. The value of the characteristic exponent, m, can be estimated from the general properties of molecular interaction or from adjustments of experimental pVT-data (Christoforakos and Franck, 1986). For the calculations in the present study m = 10 has been chosen (Wu et al., 1990). σ is the sphere diameter and N0 is Avogadros constant. The virial attraction terms can be given by the following: Here k is Boltzmanns constant, ω is the relative width of the square-well in units of σ, ω is its depth and σ is its core diameter. The selection of parameters for mixed interactions is a central problem. If identical relative square-well widths are ωij = ωii+ωjj used for different particle combinations in the binary fluid mixtures, the usual Lorentz-Berthelot combination rules together with empirical parameters kε and kσ can be applied: kε and kσ are binary mixing coefficients. The relative width of the potential well, ω, can be set at values between 1.5 and 2.5 or derived from vapor pressure curves. The ω-values decrease with the increase of the molecular polarity and can be correlated with an acentric factor (Christoforakos and Franck, 1986). These are adjustable parameters defined by combination rules. The factors kε and kσ can be determined from experimental mixture data or can be predicted by analogy from existing values of related systems. It appears that kε and kσ remain constant or vary only modestly and systematically within certain groups of systems. The diameter σ and the depth, ε, of the square-well are derived from critical data of the pure partners. The third virial coefficient is given by: The auxiliary functions of the virial coefficients I11 to I33 have been given by Hirschfelder et al. (1964). To determine the critical phenomena of binary systems, the stability criteria formulated with the Helmholtz energy A have to be observed. The critical points of mixtures are obtained when all of the physical properties of two coexisting phases are identical. This is obtained when the following conditions are satisfied simultaneously (Sadus, 1992b): where A, T and V denote the Helmholtz function, temperature and volume, respectively. The conditions W = 0 and X = 0 express the relationships between the temperature T, the molar volume, Vm and the mole fraction, xi, of the critical point. The condition Y>0 guarantees the thermodynamic stability of the calculated critical point. The analytical determination of the critical curve is possible only when relatively simple expressions for the molar Helmholtz function of the fluid mixture, Am, can be obtained. The equation contains a term for a residual free energy as well as terms for a reference state with chemical potentials μiθ and pressure pθ (McGlashan, 1979). From thermodynamics, Am, which is a function of T, Vm and xi, can be given by: Shmonov et al. 1993) and Deiters et al. (1993) have given more detailed descriptions. Results and Discussion
The critical curve is of great importance for characterizing the real behavior
of mixtures. Critical curves of binary mixtures are usually classified into
six principal types (Konynenburg and Scott, 1980). The shapes of critical curves
are very sensitive to the molecular size and interactions of the components.
In this section, the results for eight binary mixtures calculated by the Heilig-Franck
EOS are shown (Fig. 1-8). A systematic classification
of binary mixtures has been proposed by van Konynenburg and Scott (Konynenburg
and Scott, 1980). In this classification different binary mixtures of carbon
dioxide+n-alkanes belong to different types.
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Fig. 1: |
Tc-xc, pc-xc
and pc-Tc diagrams of the SC CO2+CH4
system |
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Fig. 2: |
Tc-xc, pc-xc
and pc-Tc diagrams of the SC CO2+C2H6
system |
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Fig. 3: |
Tc-xc, pc-xc
and pc-Tc diagrams of the SC CO2+C3H8
system |
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Fig. 4: |
Tc-xc, pc-xc
and pc-Tc diagrams of the SC CO2+C4H10
system |
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Fig. 5: |
Tc-xc, pc-xc
and pc-Tc diagrams of the SC CO2+C5H12
system |
Type I binary p-T diagrams include, CO2+ethane (Fig.
2) and CO2+n-butane (Fig. 4). This is the simplest
case in which the p-T projection of the three dimensional pressure-temperature-composition
(p-T-x) diagram consists of two vapor-pressure curves for the pure components
and a critical line. Type I can be further divided into five subdivisions according
to the shape of the continuous gas-liquid critical curve The molecules of CO2
and ethane have similar shapes and sizes. The quadrupole moment of carbon dioxide
is much stronger than that of ethane.
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Fig. 6: |
Tc-xc, pc-xc
and pc-Tc diagrams of the SC CO2+C6H14
system |
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Fig. 7: |
Tc-xc, pc-xc
and pc-Tc diagrams of the SC CO2+C7H16
system |
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Fig. 8: |
Tc-xc, pc-xc
and pc-Tc diagrams of the SC CO2+C8H18
system |
The binary p-T diagram of CO2+ethane belongs to the third subdivision
of type I, in which the critical curve is convex and exhibits a minimum temperature
in the p-T plane. The binary p-T diagram of CO2-butane belongs to
the second subdivision of type I, in which the critical curve is convex and
exhibits a maximum pressure in the p-T plane. According to the classification
of Konynenburg and Scott (1980), the binary p-T diagrams of CO2+methane
(Fig. 1), CO2+propane (Fig. 3),
CO2+pentane (Fig. 5) and CO2+hexane
(Fig. 6) should also belong to type I fluid phase behavior,
although the binary mixture of CO2+hexane may exhibit a metastable
immiscibility at low temperature.
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Fig. 9: |
Vm, c-x diagram of the SC CO2+n-alkane
systems. Δ∇□: experimental data |
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Fig. 10: |
pc-pc diagram of the SC CO2+n-alkane
systems. Δ∇□: experimental data |
Type II binary p-T diagrams include, CO2+n-heptane (Fig. 7) and CO2+n-octane (Fig. 8). As the mutual solubility of the components decreases, the Upper Critical Solution Temperatures (UCSTs) versus pressure (UCSTs-p) line shows liquid-liquid immiscibility. This line starts at the liquid-liquid-gas triple phase line. There is a point on the UCSTs-p diagram, where the heavy component can be precipitated by a small temperature increase, a small pressure decrease, a large temperature decrease, or an extremely pronounced pressure increase. At higher temperatures, the gas-liquid critical curve of the type II mixture is similar to that of type I. However, at relatively low temperatures, it has liquid-liquid immiscibility and the loci of UCSTs remain distinct from the gas-liquid critical curve.
Figure 1-8 show the calculated critical
curves for SC CO2+n-alkanes (from methane to octane) in comparison
with experimental curves from the literature (Mraw et al., 1978; Horstmann
et al., 2000; Roof and Baron, 1967; Freitas et al., 2004; Chen
et al., 2003; Liu et al., 2003; Choi and Yeo, 1998; Kalra et
al., 1978) and our experimental data.
Table 1: |
The interaction parameters for the binary systems |
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Table 2: |
The critical properties of the pure substances |
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Our calculated results have excellent agreement with the experimental data.
Table 1 gives a compilation of the adjustable parameters,
ω, kε and kσ, for the eight SC CO2+n-alkane
systems. Table 2 gives the critical constants for CO2
and the eight alkanes. The values of ω and kσ for each
of the systems are 2.3 and 1, respectively. The value of ω is determined
by the molecular polarity. Therefore, ω is constant for the nonpolar alkanes.
The factor kσ describes the deviations of σij
from 1/2(σii+σjj) and the factor kε
describes the deviations of εij from 1/2(εii+εjj).
The value of kε decreases with the increase in alkane carbon
number except for n-octane. Octane has a higher critical temperature and lower
critical pressure and the binary p-T diagram of SC CO2+n-octane belongs
to type II. Therefore, it requires a higher kε value.
Figure 9 and 10 give the Vm, c-xc
and pc-Pc curves. They show the similar rules that with
the increase in alkane carbon number the curves give regular change, especially
from C4 to C8.
The parameters in Table 1 provide a useful basis to estimate
the homogeneous regions and the two-phase behavior of binary systems and can
be applied to calculate the three-dimensional phase equilibrium surfaces. Using
the parameter values in Table 2, the Tc-xc,
pc-xc and pc-Tc diagrams have been
plotted. The changes in the adjustable parameters ω, kε
and kσ are very small for the different alkanes. If other cosolvents
with different polarity and molecular size are used, then the values of ω,
kε and kσ would be more dissimilar. The calculated
data are compared with the experimental data in Fig. 1-8.
They show a reasonable correlation. Therefore, the Heilig-Franck equation is
suitable to predict bimodal curves and critical curves for the eight SC CO2+n-alkane
systems at higher temperatures and pressures.
Conclusions
• |
The critical curves of the eight binary systems from SC CO2+methane
to SC CO2+n-hexane at higher temperatures and pressures all belong
to type I and the critical curves of the binary systems for SC CO2+n-heptane
and SC CO2+n-octane belong to type II. |
• |
The critical molar volumes and densities are obtained with the equation
of state by Heilig and Franck. The complete critical curves of carbon dioxide
and low molecular alkanes afford more data to researching on the fundamental
chemistry and chemical engineering. |
• |
The adjustable parameters, ω, kε and kσ,
for the eight SC CO2+n-alkane systems have been given. The value
of kε decreases with the increase in alkane carbon number
except for n-octane and the values of ω and kσ are
2.3 and 1, respectively. |
• |
The adjustable parameters ω, kε and kσ,
for the eight SC CO2+n-alkane systems and the critical constants
for CO2 and the alkane partners may give a useful basis to estimate
the homogeneous regions and two-phase behavior of binary systems and can
be applied to calculate the three-dimensional phase equilibrium surface. |
• |
The calculated critical curves in these systems are in good agreement
with experimental data. The greatest relative error for pressure is 5.69%
and for the mole fractions of CO2 it is 9.73%. The Heilig-Franck
equation of state has been found to have good prediction and correlation
with binary vapor-liquid equilibrium data of the carbon dioxide+alkane systems. |
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