Azeotropic behaviour of (benzene + cyclohexane + chlorobenzene) ternary mixture using chlorobenzene as entrainer at 101.3 kPa

In this paper, the azeotropic behaviour of the (benzene + cyclohexane + chlorobenzene) ternary mixture was experimentally investigated with the aim of enhancing the knowledge for the feasible use of chlorobenzene as an entrainer for the azeotropic distillation of the binary azeotrope. Such a study has not been reported in the literature to the best of the authors’ knowledge. (Vapour + liquid) equilibria data for (benzene + cyclohexane + chlorobenzene) at 101.3 kPa were obtained with a Othmer-type ebulliometer. Data were tested and considered thermodynamically consistent. The experimental results showed that this ternary mixture is completely miscible and exhibits an unique binary homogeneous azeotrope, an unstable node at the conditions studied, and the propitious topological characteristics (residual curve map and relative volatility) to be separated. Satisfactory results were obtained for the correlation of equilibrium compositions with the UNIQUAC activity coefficients model and also for prediction with the UNIFAC method. In both cases, low root mean square deviations of the vapour mole fraction and temperature were calculated. The capability of chlorobenzene as a modified distillation agent at atmospheric condition is discussed in terms of the thermodynamic topological analysis. A conceptual distillation scheme with reversed volatility is proposed to separate the azeotropic mixture. In order to reduce the operational cost requirements of the sequence of columns proposed, the range for optimal reflux and the ratio for feed flow conditions were studied.