Vapor liquid equilibrium modeling of alkane systems with Equations of State: “Simplicity versus complexity”

Two types of Equations of State (EoS), which are characterized here as “simple” and “complex” EoS, are evaluated in this study. The “simple” type involves two versions of the Peng–Robinson (PR) EoS: the traditional one that utilizes the experimental critical properties and the acentric factor and the other, referred to as PR-fitted (PR-f), where these parameters are determined by fitting pure compound vapor pressure and saturated liquid volume data. As “complex” EoS in this study are characterized the EoS derived from statistical mechanics considerations and involve the Sanchez–Lacombe (SL) EoS and two versions of the Statistical Associating Fluid Theory (SAFT) EoS, the original and the Perturbed-Chain SAFT (PC-SAFT).The evaluation of these two types of EoS is carried out with respect to their performance in the prediction and correlation of vapor liquid equilibria in binary and multicomponent mixtures of methane or ethane with alkanes of various degree of asymmetry. It is concluded that for this kind of systems complexity offers no significant advantages over simplicity. Furthermore, the results obtained with the PR-f EoS, especially those for multicomponent systems that are encountered in practice, even with the use of zero binary interaction parameters, indicate that this EoS may become a powerful tool for reservoir fluid phase equilibria modeling.