Separation of bisphenol A from aqueous solution by using data from ternary equilibrium systems of bisphenol A-water-solvents composed of butan-1-ol, cyclohexanol and cyclohexane

The present study shows how to remove bisphenol A (BPA) from aqueous solution using different sorts of solvents. To do so, liquid-liquid equilibrium data were obtained for ternaries systems of bisphenol A-water-solvents using butan-1-ol, cyclohexanol and cyclohexane as solvents in order to study the possible distribution of bisphenol A in these solvents compared to water. The mutual solubility curves, tie-lines data, distribution coefficients, selectivity diagram and separation factors were determined for these three aqueous systems. The distribution coefficients show that all the three solvents are suitable to extract bisphenol A, with a high potential ability for the cyclohexanol. But regarding the separation factors, butan-1-ol presents the high value, indicating its potential ability to separate bisphenol A from water. This has been confirmed by the study of the selectivity diagram. The thermodynamic consistency of the equilibrium tie-lines data was ascertained by Othmer-Tobias and Hand plots.