For
separating the special phenolic compound 2,6-xylenol from the
model coal tar, the liquid–liquid equilibrium data regarding
the four mixtures (toluene + 2,6-xylenol + glycerol/ethylene glycol/1,4-butanediol/1,3-propanediol)
were measured at 303.15 K under pressure 0.1 MPa. The separation performance
of the selected solvents was assessed by distribution coefficient
(D) and separation factor (S). The
experimental and calculated results showed that glycerol and ethylene
glycol were suitable solvents. Meanwhile, the reliability of the measured
data was checked by the Hand and Othmer–Tobias methods. In
addition, the NRTL and UNIQUAC thermodynamic models were adopted to
correlate the experimental data with the calculated values of root-mean-square
deviation (RMSD) and absolute average relative deviation (AARD) lower
than 0.01. The consistency of the regressed binary interaction parameters
was verified using a tool GUI-MATLAB.