Verifying validity of vapor-phase ideality assumption for reactive system of acetic acid (1) + ethanol (2) + ethyl acetate (3) + water (4) at 1 atm

Thermo-physical properties calculation has a very important role in modeling and simulation of reactive processing systems. In recent years, a set of research papers in area of modeling and simulation for producing ethyl acetate by reactive distillation process was published. They assumed that the vapor phase at atmospheric pressure is ideal. In this work the validity of such assumption for reactive quaternary system of acetic acid (1) + ethanol (2) + ethyl acetate (3) + water (4) has been studied. For broad-spectrum evaluation, seven equations of state vdW, RK, PR, Soave, SRK, BWRS, and the ideal gas equation of state are used. The results show that although the vapor phase is nearly ideal, but based on the gained results the best equation of state is BWRS, and the simple van der Waals equation of state is in the second place.

Keywords:

Phase equilibria , Equation of state , BWRS , Reactive distillation , Ethyl acetate