Abstract

Ionic liquids are neoteric, environmentally friendly solvents (since they do not produce emissions) composed of large organic cations and relatively small inorganic anions. They have favorable physical properties, such as negligible volatility and wide range of liquid existence. Moreover, many different cations and anions can be used to synthesize ionic liquid, so the properties can be designed by the use of selected combinations of anions and cations. Liquid-liquid equilibrium (LLE) data for systems including ionic liquids, although essential for the design and operation of separation processes, are still scarce. However, some recent studies have presented ternary LLE data involving several ionic liquids and organic compounds such as alkanes, alkenes, alkanols, water, ethers and aromatics. In this work, the ASOG model for the activity coefficient is used to predict the LLE for 11 binary and 17 ternary systems including the ionic liquid 1-alkyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate plus alkanes, alkenes, alkanols, ketones, carboxylic acids and aromatics. New group interaction parameters were determined by using a modified Simplex method, minimizing a composition-based objective function. The results are satisfactory, with rms deviations of about 4%. © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.