Title

Liquid-liquid equilibria of water + ethanol + castor oil and the effect of cellulose nanocrystal/Fe3O4 and lignin/Fe3O4 nanoparticles

Author(s)

Mohammad J. Hasan, University of Texas at San Antonio
Fariba Yehaneh, University of Texas at San Antonio
Amy Ciric, University of Dayton
Peng Chen, University of Dayton
Erick S. Vasquez, University of DaytonFollow
Esteban E. Ureña-Benavides, University of Texas at San Antonio

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-11-2023

Publication Source

The Journal of Chemical Thermodynamics

Abstract

Castor oil has been proposed as a renewable solvent for the liquid extraction of ethanol from water as an alternative to more traditional energy intensive distillation-based methods. The liquid–liquid equilibrium (LLE) of the ternary system water + ethanol + castor oil was determined at 295.15 K using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Castor oil was herein treated as a pseudo-component with the molecular weight of the triglyceride of ricinoleic acid. The experimental data was fitted to the UNIQUAC and NRTL models to obtain parameters for castor oil, and binary interaction parameters for castor oil/ethanol and castor oil/water pairs. The separation factors and distribution coefficients of water and ethanol were calculated at ethanol concentrations ranging from 2.73 ± 0.35 to 55.8 ± 1.1 wt%, with a high separation factor of 12.7 ± 3.3, and a distribution coefficient of 0.352 ± 0.078, at the lowest ethanol concentration tested. Moreover, iron oxide-coated cellulose nanocrystals (CNC@Fe3O4) and Kraft lignin-coated iron oxide (lignin@Fe3O4) nanoparticles (NPs) were added to the castor oil + water + ethanol mixtures at 0.01 g/g mixture, to investigate the effect of the NPs in altering the LLE of the system. It was found that the NPs had a negligible (<1%) effect on the thermodynamic equilibrium, which opens the possibility of using them in advanced applications such as the magnetically controlled demulsification of stable dispersions generated during liquid–liquid extraction process.

ISBN/ISSN

0021-9614

Document Version

Postprint

Comments

The document available for download is the authors' accepted manuscript, provided in compliance with the publisher's policy on self-archiving. Permission documentation is on file. To view the version of record, use the DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jct.2023.107007

Publisher

Elsevier

Volume

180

Peer Reviewed

yes

Keywords

Liquid-liquid equilibria, Ternary diagram, Water + Ethanol + Castor oil, LLE, Ethanol Extraction

eCommons Citation

Mohammad J. Hasan, Fariba Yeganeh, Amy Ciric, Peng Chen, Erick S. Vasquez, Esteban E. Ureña-Benavides, "Liquid-liquid equilibria of water + ethanol + castor oil and the effect of cellulose nanocrystal/Fe3O4 and lignin/Fe3O4 nanoparticles," The Journal of Chemical Thermodynamics, Volume 180, 2023.