Residual thermodynamic properties in reactor modeling

The synthesis of three commonly used oxygenated gasoline additives (MTBE, E TBE and IPTBE) in the liquid phase is modeled in a batch reactor using two models: one based on liquid data (the ideal model) and another based only o n gas-phase data (the non-ideal model). A Redlich-Kwong-type equation is se lected to describe the vapor-liquid equilibrium and the Wang and Sandler mi xing rules are used to develop convenient analytical expressions far the re sidual thermodynamic properties of the non-ideal mixtures. Although based o nly on gas-phase data, the non-ideal model performs better than the ideal o ne in the simulation of the liquid-phase synthesis reactions. (C) 2001 Else vier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.