Accurate analytic
thermodynamic modeling of water and its mixtures
with hydrocarbon and oxygenates is difficult even with new and advanced
equations of state such as the perturbed-chain statistical associating
fluid theory (PC-SAFT). Several attempts have been made in the past
by various authors to solve this issue. However, current models generally
fail to describe simultaneously and accurately pure water properties
(especially its liquid density) and liquid–liquid equilibria
for mixtures involving water, hydrocarbons, and oxygenates. In the
current work, this problem is dealt with by modification in the fundamental
structure of the model. It was established that the temperature dependent
diameter d(T) does not behave in
the same way for water as it inscribed in the original model. Hence,
a modification was proposed for d(T) of water in order to correctly represent the phase behavior of
pure water and its mixtures with hydrocarbons and oxygenates. The
deviations in saturated liquid densities and vapor pressure for pure
water were reduced to 0.6% and 2.2%, respectively, in a large temperature
range. The results for liquid–liquid equilibrium (LLE), vapor–liquid
equilibrium (VLE) and vapor–liquid–liquid equilibrium
(VLLE) of various water–hydrocarbons and oxygenates show the
accuracy of this new model and its predictive capability when coupled
with a group contribution approach. For certain oxygenated mixtures
such as water with aldehydes, ketones, ethers, and esters a new contribution
to the Helmholtz energy, known as the “non-additive hard sphere”
contribution, was used. The cross-interaction parameters obtained
for mixtures were validated qualitatively by calculating octanol/water
partition coefficients and the Gibbs free energy of hydrogen bonding
(ΔG
HB). Results are found in good
agreement with experimental data.