Experimental measurement, correlation and COSMO-SAC prediction of liquid-liquid equilibrium for MIPK + dimethylphenols + water mixtures

Abstract Liquid-liquid equilibrium (LLE) data for ternary systems of methyl isopropyl ketone (MIPK) + 2,3-/3,4-/3,5-dimethylphenol + water was determined from 298.15 K to 338.15 K under 101.3 kPa in this work. Distribution coefficient and selectivity were calculated to investigate solvent extraction efficiency of dimethylphenol from water and their high values indicated that MIPK could extract dimethylphenols well. The NRTL and UNIQUAC models were applied to correlate experimental LLE data and related root-mean square deviations (RMSDs) were less than 0.5%. Additionally, the experimental data was predicted by COSMO-SAC model, and the corresponding RMSD values demonstrated that COSMO-SAC model can be applied as a predictive tool to calculate LLE data of the investigated ternary systems.