Infinite dilution activity coefficient measurements of different organic solutes in cyrene as a potential green solvent for chemical separation processes

Abstract

Biofuels are increasingly consumed globally. The search for eco-friendly solvents to replace conventional organic solvents derived from fossil fuels continues to grow. Biofuels derived from plant dry matter are abundantly available, which justifies researchers' ongoing interest in them. Researchers are exploring several options to facilitate the easy integration of this resource into existing systems. The focus of this project as a replacement for volatile organic compounds VOCs, a bio-derived solvent (BDS), cyrene, classified as dihydrolevoglucosenone by evaluating its extractive efficiency in this study for various separation using pre-screening technique known as gasliquid chromatography (GLC) instead of directly testing cyrene as a potential alternative to conventional solvents. In contrast to direct methods, GLC offers the advantage of assessing numerous separation problems in a shorter period than direct methods. Cyrene’s intermolecular interaction strengths with 32 volatile organic compounds (i.e. alkanes, alkenes, alkynes, cycloalkanes, ketones, alcohols, aromatics, heterocyclics, nitrile, esters and water) were assessed using infinite dilution activity coefficients (IDAC) measured at T = (303.15 to 333.15) K and 101.3 kPa. Further analysis of IDAC data was performed to determine the chemical thermodynamic properties, i.e., partial excess molar properties (∆𝐻1 𝐸,∞, E, T S ref i   ,∆𝐺𝑖 𝐸,∞) obtained at infinite dilution, to assess the cyrene and solute mixtures and quantify their nonideal behaviour in real mixtures. Addition to this, Aspen Plus and COSMO-RS software were used to build thermodynamic models in conjunction with the experimental data to make predictions.