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Abstract
Salt effect on vapour–liquid equilibrium (VLE) has been a subject of intense investigation from experimental and modelling perspectives since the salting-in and salting-out effects might eliminate the possibility of azeotrope formation at saturation. Nevertheless, thermodynamic consistency evaluation of data generated from this type of studies, accounting for non-idealities of one or two of the phases involved, is mandatory. In this communication, a primary evaluation of thermodynamic consistency under a non-ideal VLE situation of data generated for an ethanol–water system with and without the addition of inorganic potassium chloride (KCl) salt is presented. The equilibrium data (T-x-y diagram) for ethanol–water system is generated under isobaric conditions, with and without 2 and 4 g/L concentration levels of KCl. The isobaric VLE data of ethanol–water system saturated with KCl concentrations are correlated by means of a modified Raoult's law to predict the activity coefficient of the volatile components. Activity coefficients are evaluated using a state equation and fugacities as well. Both methodologies give identical activity coefficients, indicating that Raoult's law is a simple approach to calculate these parameters. Thermodynamic consistency of VLE data with and without the addition of KCl is validated from a simple but reliable strategy that makes use of the Gibbs–Duhem plot and Murthy's approach which avoids the use of enthalpy of mixing.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank Dr A.K.S. Murthy for helping with the understanding of his approach on the thermodynamic consistency.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
ORCID
Gamaliel Che-Galicia http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9500-3567