Ternary Phase Equilibrium Data for Water/Acetic Acid/Solvent (n-Hexane, n-Heptane) Systems

The present study dealt with the determination of the liquid–liquid equilibrium data of the water/acetic acid/n-hexane, water/acetic acid/n-heptane ternary systems at T = 293.15 K, by liquid–liquid extraction, where a purely experimental procedure has been adopted. The objective was the determination of the physical quantities such as the distribution coefficient, the separation factor, the selectivity as well as the reliability of the experimental data using the Othmer–Tobias and Hand equations. The analysis of the obtained experimental results reveals that Hexane seems to be the best solvent for the extraction of Acetic acid which is confirmed by the high separation factor values as well as the selectivity curves that are determined to help choose the solvent. The results of the Othmer–Tobias and Hand correlations for the studied systems clearly show that the Othmer–Tobias correlation yielded reliable results for the representation of ternary equilibrium data given the values ​​of the R2 correlation coefficients.