Determination and modeling of liquid-liquid equilibrium for ternary mixtures of methyl isopropyl ketone, cresol isomers and water

Ternary liquid-liquid phase equilibria data for three systems, (methyl isopropyl ketone + o-cresol + water), (methyl isopropyl ketone + m-cresol + water) and (methyl isopropyl ketone + p-cresol + water), were determined at 298.2 and 313.2 K and 101.3 kPa. The ternary phase diagrams composed of liquid-liquid equilibrium (LLE) data were presented graphically. The performance of methyl isopropyl ketone (MIPK) in extracting cresols was evaluated by distribution coefficients and separation factors. It could be concluded from the high distribution coefficients of cresols and separation factors that MIPK is an adequate extractant to extract cresols from its dilute aqueous solutions. The experimental data were correlated by the NRTL and UNIQUAC activity coefficient models. And the deviations between the experimental data and the calculated data from the NRTL and UNIQUAC models are very small, thus the two models both could represent the studied systems well.