Separation and Purification Technology 154 (2015) 366
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Separation and Purification Technology
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/seppur
Letter to the Editor
Separation of isobutyl alcohol and isobutyl
acetate by extractive distillation and
pressure-swing distillation: Simulation and
optimization
The claim in the article published by R. Munoz, J.B. Monton,
M.C. Burguet, J. de la Torre ‘‘Separation of isobutyl alcohol and iso-
butyl acetate by extractive distillation and pressure-swing distilla-
tion: Simulation and Optimization’’ 55 (2006) 175–183 for the
solvent selection is not permissible. The different solvents which
the authors used are Dimethyl formamide, n-Butyl Propionate,
1-Hexanol. Thermodynamic model used was only UNIQUAC tor
Fig. 1. VLE data plotted on solvent free basis for the system IBA + IBAc + DMF at
101.325 kPa. Continuous diagonal line for DMF mole fraction x = 0; other lines for
DMF mole fraction x = 0.7 with different thermodynamic models.
1383-5866/ Ó 2015 Published by Elsevier B.V.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.seppur.2015.09 .012
all the solvents. But when we did the simulations for these sol-
vents using CHEMCAD v 6.2 and obtained the VLE data for DMF
using UNIQUAC method, then the VLE curve shows positive devia-
tion from Raoults law and the relative volatility obtained is greater
than unity which was contradictory with Fig. 1 of the above men-
tioned article. Since if the value relative volatility is different for
different thermodynamic models then we must verify the VLE with
the experimentally obtained values. The article by the same author
published in Fluid Phase Equilibria 2005 is related with the VLE ob-
tained for IBA + IBAc + DMF which shows the different nature but
with UNIQUAC model.
So we used different thermodynamic models like NRTL, UNIFAC
for getting the curve for VLE similar to the given Fig. 1 of the article
published.
From Fig. 1 we can conclude that when we select the thermody-
namic model UNIQUAC then the simulation results may have dif-
ferent values, since the values of relative volatility obtained will
be greater than unity and the experimental values and the model
like UNIFAC have different values for relative volatility that is also
below Unity.
Hence all the simulations must have to be done with using the
thermodynamic model UNIFAC instead of UNIQUAC.
Sanjay Pralhad Shirsat
Laxminarayan Institute of Technology, Chemical Engineering,
Opposite Bharat Nagar, Amaravati Road,
Nagpur, Maharashtra 440033, India
Tel.: +91 9372870908
E-mail address: spslit@rediffmail.com