Tokyo Tech News

Liquid-liquid phase transition for water + hydrocarbon mixtures at high temperatures and pressures

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Published: February 6, 2014

Water + hydrocarbon mixtures exhibit complex phase behavior at high temperatures and pressures. An in depth knowledge of the phase behavior for water + hydrocarbon mixtures is important for the design of the process of oil sand and bitumen upgrading using supercritical water.

However, there is very little experimental data of the phase equibria for water + hydrocarbon mixtures at high temperatuers and pressures.

Now, Yusuke Shimoyama and colleagures at Tokyo Tech discovered a liquid - liquid phase transition for water + light hydrocarbon + heavy hydrocarbon mixture at a constant temperature.

The phase transition pressures for water + light hydrocarbon + 1-methylnapthalene (heavy hydrocarbon) systems were measured from 290 to 310 ℃ and 8.6 to 25.0 MPa and determined as the pressure at which the water rich phase was at the center of a high pressure cell.

The phase transition pressures for water + light hydrocarbon + 1-methylnapthalene systems resulted from drastic concentration changes of the light hydrocarbon in water rich phase by changing pressures.

The liquid - liquid phase transitions for water + hydrocarbon mixtures at high temperatures and pressure are important knowledge for the optimization of the operation conditions for the upgrading process of oil sand and bitumen using supercritical water.

Liquid - liquid phase transition for water + hydrocarbon mixtures
Liquid - liquid phase transition for water + hydrocarbon mixtures

Reference:

Authors:
Masaki Togo, Yoshiki Inamori, Yusuke Shimoyama.
Title of original paper:
Phase transitions on (liquid + liquid) equilibria for (water + 1-methylnaphthalene + light aromatic hydrocarbon) ternary systems at T = (563, 573, and 583) K.
Journal, volume, pages and year:
The Journal of Chemical Thermodynamics 55, 1-6 (2012).
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):
Affiliations:
Department of Chemical Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology.
Laboratory website:

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