Determination of Azeotropy

• Main Author: Kyle Cogswell
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of South Florida 2009-01-01
• Series: Undergraduate Journal of Mathematical Modeling: One + Two
• Subjects: Azeotrope, Methanol acetone system, Kelvin
• Online Access: http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/ujmm/vol1/iss2/3

The ultimate goal of this paper is the determination of an azeotrope within a methanol-acetone system. An azeotrope is the point in a chemical system at which coexisting compositions of vapor and liquid phases are equal. The importance of this point lies in the fact that azeotropes are undesirable; they prevent one from completely separating a mixture through distillation. This state can occur over a range of temperatures and for the purposes of this paper there is only one azeotrope for each given temperature. All azeotropes occur at relative extrema in pressure. By finding these extrema, we find the mole fractions of an azeotrope for a given temperature in the methanol-acetone system.