Estimating the absorption of volatile organic compounds in four biodiesels using the Unifac procedure
- Authors: Mateescu, Corina M. , Muzenda, Edison , Belaid, Mohamed , Abdulkareem, Saka , Afolabi, Ayo S.
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: Biodiesel , Volatile organic compounds , Absorption
- Type: Article
- Identifier: http://ujcontent.uj.ac.za8080/10210/363185 , uj:4696 , http://hdl.handle.net/10210/10760
- Description: This work considered the thermodynamic feasibility of scrubbing volatile organic compounds into biodiesel in view of designing a gas treatment process with this absorbent. A detailed vapour – liquid equilibrium investigation was performed using the original UNIFAC group contribution method. The four biodiesels studied in this work are methyl oleate, methyl palmitate, methyl linolenate and ethyl stearate. The original UNIFAC procedure was used to estimate the infinite dilution activity coefficients of 13 selected volatile organic compounds in the biodiesels. The calculations were done at the VOC mole fraction of 9.213x10-8. Ethyl stearate gave the most favourable phase equilibrium. A close agreement was found between the infinite dilution activity coefficient of toluene found in this work and those reported in literature. Thermodynamic models can efficiently be used to calculate vast amount of phase equilibrium behaviour using limited number of experimental data.
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Influence of structure on fatty acid ester-alkane interactions
- Authors: Scheepers, Jacques J. , Muzenda, Edison , Belaid, Mohamed
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: Absorption , Activity coefficients , Biodiesel , Esters , Volatile organic compounds
- Type: Article
- Identifier: uj:4671 , ISSN 978-988-19252-2-0 , http://hdl.handle.net/10210/10436
- Description: The activity coefficients of alkane structures in various types of fatty acid ester solvents was measured in order to determine the effect of bond interactions between these two chemical species. It is important to understand the mechanics of these interactions for absorber system design. Activity coefficients were determined by use of a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet designed for this purpose. It was determined that the length of the ester chain, as well as ester chain saturation had an impact on activity coefficients, in that saturated ester chains and longer ester chains yielded lower activity coefficients. Multiple branched cycloalkanes yielded lower activity coefficients than straight chain hydrocarbons and unbranched cycloalkanes. It was also noted that the location of the carboxyl group in the ester chain had no influence on activity coefficients.
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Influence of temperature and molecular structure on organics-biodiesel interactions using group contribution methods
- Authors: Scheepers, Jacques J. , Muzenda, Edison , Belaid, Mohamed
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: Group contribution method , Phase equilibrium , Solubility , Volatile organic compounds , Absorption , Activity coefficients
- Type: Article
- Identifier: uj:4672 , ISBN 978-93-82242-16-1 , http://hdl.handle.net/10210/10437
- Description: Resulting from the trend of increasingly stringent environmental legislation, the drive to secure environmentally friendly absorption solvents has gained much impetus in recent times. In order to design and operate separation processes units, it is essential that the engineer has accurate and reliable knowledge of the phase equilibrium behaviour of the system in question. Since obtaining experimental data on the system can be time-consuming, the use of thermodynamic models is often useful in obtaining preliminary design and feasibility study information. This work examines the suitability of biodiesel (particularly the constituents methyl palmitate and methyl linolenate) as an absorbent solvent for the recovery of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from waste process gas streams. In particular, activity coefficients were measured in the dilute region in an attempt to predict the effects of molecular structure and temperature on the solubility of the VOCs in the methyl esters under study. The group contribution methods UNIFAC and Modified UNIFAC Dortmund, set up on Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, were used to predict the required phase equilibrium at infinite dilution. The results obtaine
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Volatile organic compounds – biphenyl thermodynamic interactions
- Authors: Muzenda, Edison
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Absorption , Activity coefficient , Phase equilibrium , Volatile organic compounds , Thermodynamics
- Type: Article
- Identifier: uj:4989 , ISSN 2078-0966 , http://hdl.handle.net/10210/13124
- Description: This work focused on the thermodynamic interactions involving volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and biphenyl. The solubility of 60 VOCs in biphenyl was studied using group contribution methods. The modified UNIFAC Dortmund and Lyngby were used to compute the required phase equilibrium in the form of infinite dilution activity coefficients. Six family groups were studied mainly alkanes, alkenes, alkynes, aldehydes, alcohols, and carboxylic acids. The Modified UNIFAC Dortmund performed better than the Modified UNIFAC Lyngby. Biphenyl showed excellent absorption affinity for all VOCs in particular for alkynes and aldehydes. The solubility decreased with increase in VOC molecular weight.
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