Azeotrope of toluene-water

[rocketscientist]

Hi everyone,

Does anyone know, or have access to, charts for the azeotrope of toluene and water. We are doing a decanting and the results are not promising. As I suspected, we are seeing cloudiness. As I understand the process, our operating temperature is about ambient thanks to the addition of DI water. The organic phase enters the process at probably 40 C. Of course, it's not winter anymore so nobody's thinking about how badly this solution of C10+ alkenes, toluene, and water is going to behave once the ambient temperature drops below 10 F. The aqueous phase is already cloudy at ambient.

The pH may not be completely neutral, though it is supposed to be. The density is about 0.8-0.84 for the heavy organics and obviously about 1 for the water.


Any thoughts?

 

[StoneCold]

Toluene and water usually don't mix well. One way to improve the separation is to add salt to the water. What type of salt is up to you, but by making the water solution more polar the amount of toluene trapped in it will go down.


Regards
StoneCold

 

[siretb]

nOt sure the azeotrope composition will help a lot here is your data

at atmospheric pressure
Boiling point 85°C azeotrope compostion: 20.2% wt %water
0.05%wt water in organic layer 0.06% toluene in water layer.

You could easily find it on Google