Determination and prediction of binary solubility for aromatic-tetraethylene glycol (with water) systems

The binary solubilities of tetraethylene glycol (TTEG) with benzene, toluene or p xylene, were measured by the turbidity point method. In TTEG the content of water ranged from 0 to 5% and the test temperature ranged from 20℃ to 120℃. Increasing the temperature resulted in greater solubility of the aromatics in TTEG, while increasing the content of water caused the aromatic solubility to decrease. The benzene solubillity in TTEG was the greatest followed by toluene and xylene at the same water content and temperature. The mutual solubility was predicted by correlating the paramaters of a new group for the UNIFAC model for the aromatics extraction system. The modified UNIFAC group contribution model was used to predict the binary solubility of TTEG and aromatics. The average deviation between the experimental result and prediction is 4.06%. Therefore, the UNIFAC model can be used to describe the solubility phenomena for TTEG aromatics systems.