Studies on Bi-Cyclic Aromatics Extraction using Furfural and N-Methyl Pyrrolidone (NMP) as Solvent

Abstract

In this work, the separation of naphthalene, a bicyclic aromatic component, by the solvent extraction method from a model oil (p-xylene, iso-octane, and naphthalene) using furfural and n-methyl pyrrolidone (NMP) as solvent has been investigated. A four factor Box-Behnken design was used to study the individual and interactive effects of four main parameters namely paraffinic content in model oil (P/F): 0.7–0.8; solvent to feed ratio (S/F): 0.5–1.0; temperature (T): 20–40°C; time (t): 1–3 h for furfural and 1–7 h for NMP on the yield and selectivity of naphthalene. Gas chromatography was carried out to analyze the composition of raffinate and extract phases. Various polynomial models were fitted to find out the best model for the system. Pareto analysis of variance (ANOVA) and other statistical tests were performed to check the significance of the model. Furfural was found to be a better solvent as compared to NMP, both in terms of yield and selectivity. The operating conditions leading to maximum aromatic recovery have been optimized. The optimum conditions for furfural was found to be P/F = 0.7, S/F = 0.5, temperature = 24°C and time = 3 h whereas the optimum conditions for NMP were: P/F = 0.76, S/F = 0.76, temperature = 22°C, and time = 4.1 h.

Keywords:

• bicyclic aromatic extraction
• box-behnken design
• furfural
• liquid-liquid extraction
• n-methyl pyrrolidone (NMP)
• naphthalene