Chemical Engineering & Technology, Vol.25, No.12, 1171-1175, 2002
Prediction of vapor-liquid equilibrium inside capillary porous plates
Capillary distillation is a relatively new separation process which uses capillary porous media for the separation of mixtures. It utilizes the solid-liquid interfacial forces to alter the vapor-liquid equilibrium (VLE) of mixtures inside the capillary porous plates. Previous studies have shown that capillary porous plates could significantly alter the VLE of binary mixtures. It was shown that the main factors affecting the alteration of VLE of binary mixtures are the polarization of the liquids and the porous plates as well as the polarization difference between the mixture components. In this study, the VLE data for the mixtures inside capillary porous plates have been predicted using the Wilson model and the theory of Abu Al-Rub and Datta on VLE inside capillary porous media. The validity of the developed model has been assessed by comparing predicted VLE results of some binary mixtures inside capillary porous plates with experimental VLE data. The comparison showed that the model developed could predict the VLE of the studied systems accurately.