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U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

The dissolution of BTEX compounds from oxygenated gasoline

Conference ·
OSTI ID:370272
;  [1]
  1. Clarkson Univ., Potsdam, NY (United States)
The cosolvency effects of the reformulated gasoline additive ethanol is being studied to determine its influence on the migration of BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes) compounds in the subsurface. Batch equilibrium experiments showed that the solubility of m-xylene in water increases exponentially with a linear increase in ethanol concentration. Numerical simulations using the computer program CHEMSEP, which incorporates the UNIFAC activity coefficient model, shows that this thermodynamic model is adequate for describing the equilibrium of ethanol BTEX compounds between the aqueous and organic phases in this nonideal system. Both experimental and modeling results show that, because of the essentially infinite solubility of ethanol in water, the cosolvency effect is short lived as the ethanol is rapidly depleted in the organic phase.
OSTI ID:
370272
Report Number(s):
CONF-960376--
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English