Separation of ternary system (1,2-ethanediol+1,3-butanediol+1,3-propanediol) by distillation

A study on separation of system (1,2-ethanediol (1,2-EG) + 1,3-butanediol (1,3-BD) + 1,3-propanediol (1,3-PG)) was conducted in the article. Vapor-liquid equilibria (VLE) behaviors of systems (1,2-EG + 1,3-BD), (1,2-EG + 1,3-PG), (1,2-EG + 1,3-BD + 1,3-PG) were studied at 101.3 kPa. A two-column (column C1 and column C2) sequence distillation process at normal pressure was designed and optimized to separate the ternary mixture. The results have shown Wilson model is the most appropriate one to describe the ternary system; product amounts of 1,2-EG, 1,3-BD, and 1,3-PG can be up to 0.970, 0.945, and 0.980, respectively, under optimized conditions.