Experimental Study and Modeling of the Liquid–Liquid and Solid–Liquid–Liquid Equilibrium of Aqueous Solutions Involving 1-Butanol and Xylitol at Different Temperatures

Abstract

The development of separation units in a biorefinery is a task of high complexity. There is a need for experimental investigations and modeling to enable knowledge about how a biomolecule interacts in a mixture of common solvents. In this context, the study of phase equilibrium can provide valuable information. For this reason, this work presents experimental data of the solid− liquid−liquid equilibrium for the mixture of water +1-butanol + xylitol in the temperature range between 283.15 and 323.15 K. The modeling part uses the NRTL model to correlate the experimental data generating binary interaction parameters. The distribution coefficient of water and 1-butanol along with the separation factor indicates that the extraction of xylitol from the binary solution of 1-butanol + xylitol can be successfully accomplished by using water as the extracting agent. The NRTL model performed successfully in correlating the experimental data with average absolute deviations in the mass fraction composition of less than 1.80%.