the phase behaviour of isopropanol/water/nacl mixtures at atmospheric pressure
abstract
alcohol-based biofuels will play a key role in substituting the fossil fuels used in transportation
and power generation. compared to fossil fuels, alcohol-based biofuels have a lower carbon
footprint and can be produced from the fermentation of biomass. moreover, some branched
alcohols have similar properties to those of gasoline which makes them suitable chemicals to
produce gasoline-like biofuels. to produce high-purity fuel-grade alcohols, the produced alcohol
must be separated from the aqueous fermentation broth usually through distillation. however,
distillation is an energy-intensive operation with a high carbon footprint; and the presence of
azeotropes of alcohol/water makes distillation very expensive and technically challenging. the
addition of some salts to the fermentation broth triggers a liquid-liquid phase splitting. one of the
liquid phases is rich in alcohol and the other is rich in water. therefore, understanding the phase
behaviour of alcohol/water/salt mixtures is very important in the design of liquid-liquid operations
for alcohol production. [...]