Ionic liquid effects on mass transfer efficiency in extractive distillation of water¿ethanol mixtures

Journal article (2014)

Authors

E Quijada-Maldonado External organisation
G.W. Meindersma External organisation
A.B. de Haan ChemE/Transport Phenomena - AS
Research Group
ChemE/Transport Phenomena (AS) (TU Delft)
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Published Date

2014

Language

English

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Faculty

Applied Sciences

Department

ChemE/Chemical Engineering

Research Group

ChemE/Transport Phenomena

Abstract

tThe relatively high viscosities of ionic liquids could reduce the mass transfer efficiency of the extractivedistillation process. The rate-based model was adopted to analyze this phenomenon since it predicted theperformance of an extractive distillation pilot plant using ionic liquids as solvent. For the water¿ethanolseparation, three ionic liquids: 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride, 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazoliumacetate and 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium dicyanamide and the organic solvent ethylene glycol wereused for the analysis. Simulations were conducted for sieve trays and Mellapak®250Y. The results indi-cate that relatively high viscosities affect the mass transfer efficiency. However, the improvements inrelative volatilities obtained from the ionic liquids help to overcome this effect. However, with high sol-vent viscosities (>65 mPa s at T = 353.15 K) it was not possible to overcome the reductions. Additionally, athigher distillate rates high relative volatilities yielded negative effects on mass transfer efficiency becauseof a decrease in vapor velocity.