CAPE PENISULA UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

BELLVILLE CAMPUS
DEPARTMENT OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING
ND : CHEMICAL ENGINEERING
VLE ASSIGNMENT

09 October 2015

SUBJECT

APT 300S

LECTURER

Ms Makiwe Nkohla

STUDENT

Richardt Johan Loots

STUDENT NO.

214196585

I certify that this report is my own unaided work, except for the assistance received
from the teaching staff. I undertake not to pass this report onto any other student

1.Objective
For this assignment, It is required to use Raoults law to predict phase behaviour
of a n-Hexane/ethanol system by plotting Txy and xy graphs for both
theoretical,which is calculated, and experimental data which is given, the %
deviance between the two must then be calculated and finally both must be
compared and discussed in order to draw a conclusion

2.Assumptions & Procedure

2.1 Assumptions
The following assumptions are made:

The vapor phase behaves as an ideal gas

The liquid phase behaves as an ideal solution
The system is in equilibrium, or must be in equilibrium

2.2 Procedure
In order to caluculate the theoretical mole fractions one must first calculate the
saturation temperature and vapour preussures for both compounds at constant
pressure this can be done by using the given Antoine constants and the modified
Antoine equation.
sat

Tn =

B
c
lnP A

[1]

This will give you the temperature range of the system and one can use various
temperatures within this range as points of interest, using this set temperatures
chosen the vapour pressures of each temperature can be calculated for each
compound with the Antoine equation
( A

P =10

B
)
T +C

[2]
Finally we can now calculate the liquid mole fractions with raoults law equations

PP2
x 1=

P1P 2

and

PP1
x 2=

P2 P 1

[3]
And from the liquid mole fractions the vapour fractions can be calculated

y 1=

P 1 . x1
P

and

y 2=

P2 . x 2
P

[4]

Also in easier terms, if the mole fraction of one compound is known it can be
substracted from 1 to determine the the mole fraction of the other compound.

VLE of n-Hexane and Ethanol

78

73
Experimental X
Temperature (C)

experimental Y

68

Theoretical X
Theoretical Y

63

58
0 0.10.20.30.40.50.60.70.80.9 1
X,Y (hexane) (mol/mol)

3.
Results

Figure 1 Temerature-molefraction graph

*Y represents vapour mole fraction and X represents liquid mole fraction.

VLE of n-Hexane and Ethanol

1
0.8
0.6
y (Hexane) (mol/mol)

Experimental
Theoretical

0.4
0.2
0
0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

X (Hexane) (mol/mol)

Figure 2 : Liquid-Vapour mole fraction graph

4.Discussion
In figure 1 It can clearly be seen that there is a deviation from the theoretical values, the graph
show that this system is a minimum boiling azeotreope, it shows the azeotrope at the minimum
temperature thus
The minimum boiling azeotrope or pressure maximum azeotrope occurs at the temperature of 58C
wher the liquid fraction of hexane is 0.67 and the vapour fraction is 0.66, whereas the frections of
ethanol is 0.33 and 0.34 respectively or one could say that to achieve the azeotropic point at 58C
the mole fractions should be in a 2:1 ratio
In figure 2 it can be seen that the curve of the experimentel values deviates from the values that
was predicted by raoults law .
The the theoretical boiling point can be seen to be 78C but the actual boiling is seen as 58C this
percentage difference was calculated to be roughly 25% which is a big difference.

5. Conclusion
this particular system is non-ideal and can not accurately be represented with raoults law. This is
why the values has to be experimentally determined
in some cases activity coefficients can be used to compensate for the the change in boiling point to
achieve more accurate results

Appendix
Table 1: Given Data

T(C)

x1
y1
x2
y2
78.30
0.00
0.00
1.00
1.00
76.00
0.01
0.10
0.99
0.91
73.20
0.02
0.19
0.98
0.81
67.40
0.060
0.365
0.94
0.635
65.9
0.08
0.42
0.92
0.58
61.8
0.152
0.532
0.848
0.468
59.4
0.245
0.605
0.755
0.395
Psat1(kP
Psat2(kP
58.7
0.333
0.63
0.667
0.37x2
a)
a)
x1
y1
y2
58.35
0.452
0.64
0.548
0.36
78.20
135.27
101.33
0.00
0.00
1.00
1.00
58.1
0.588
0.65
0.412
0.35
77.64
133.05
99.10
0.07
0.09
0.93
0.91
58
0.67
0.66
0.33
0.34
77.0858.25
130.86
0.17
0.83
0.725 96.91
0.67 0.13
0.275
0.33 0.87
76.5258.45
128.70
0.25
0.75
0.765 94.76
0.675 0.19
0.235
0.325 0.81
75.9659.15
126.57
0.32
0.68
0.898 92.64
0.71 0.26
0.102
0.29 0.74
0.955 90.57
0.745 0.32
0.045
0.255 0.68
75.40 60.2
124.46
0.39
0.61
63.5
0.99
0.84
0.01
0.16
74.84
122.39
88.54
0.38
0.46
0.62
0.54
66.7
0.994
0.935
0.006
0.065
74.28
120.33
86.55
0.44
0.52
0.56
0.48
68.7
1
1
0
0
73.72
118.31
84.59
0.50
0.58
0.50
0.42
73.16
116.31
82.67
0.55
0.64
0.45
0.36
72.60
114.34
80.79
0.61
0.69
0.39
0.31
72.04
112.40
78.94
0.67
0.74
0.33
0.26
71.48
110.48
77.13
0.73
0.79
0.27
0.21
70.92
108.58
75.36
0.78
0.84
0.22
0.16
70.36
106.72
73.62
0.84
0.88
0.16
0.12
69.80
104.87
71.91
0.89
0.92
0.11
0.08
69.24
103.05
70.24
0.95
0.96
0.05
0.04
68.70
101.33
68.66
1.00
1.00
0.00
0.00

:Calculated Raoult's Values

Table
2

n-Hexane

Values for Antoine's Equation

A

13.8193 2696.04 224.317

Tsat/kPa

P(kPa)
101.33

68.7016

BP
68.7

Ethanol
2
Values for Antoine's Equation
A

B
C
P(kPa)
Tsat/kPa
BP
3795.
230.91
16.8958
78.2
17
8 101.33
78.1999

Sample calculations
Calculations based on n-hexane @77.64C
saturation temperature
sat

Tn =

sat

Tn =

B
C
lnP A

[1]

2696.04
224.317
ln 101.3313.8193

sat

T n =68.7 C
Vapour pressure of n-hexane
( A

P =10

B
)
T +C

(13.8193

P =10

[2]

2696.
)
77.64 +224.317

P = 133.05 kPa
Liquid mole fraction

PP2
x 1=
P1P 2

[3]

P2=vapour pressure calculated for ethanol

x 1=

101.3399.1
133.0599.1

x 1= 0.07
Vapour mole fraction

P 1 . x1
y 1=
P

[4]

y 1=

133.05 0.07
101.33

y 1=0.09