Predictive models to describe VLE in ternary mixtures water + ethanol + congener for wine distillation

The modeling of liquid–vapor equilibrium in ternary mixtures that include substances found in alcoholic distillation processes of wine and musts is analyzed. In particular, vapor–liquid equilibrium in ternary mixtures containing water + ethanol + cogener has been modeled using parameters obtained from binary mixture data only. The congeners are substances that although present in very low concentrations, of the order of part per million, 10−6 to 10−4 mg/L, are important enological parameters [1] and [2]. In this work two predictive models, the PSRK equation of state and the UNIFAC liquid phase model and two semipredictive activity coefficient models: NRTL and UNIQUAC have been used. The results given by these different models have been compared with literature data and conclusions about the accuracy of the models studied are drawn, recommending the best models for correlating and predicting the phase equilibrium in this type of mixtures.