Estimation of solid solubilities in supercritical carbon dioxide: Peng-Robinson adjustable binary parameters in the near critical region

The density dependence of the binary parameters of the Peng-Robinson equation of state in near the critical region was examined. Published solubility data of eight compounds in pure CO2 have been fitted to the Peng-Robinson equation in combination with one and two parameters van der Waals mixing rules and in combination with the three parameter density dependent mixing rule of Mohamed and Holder. A systematic study has been done to determine the influence of different terms in the mixing rules. In order to obtain density dependence, binary parameters were calculated for each isotherm at particular experimental point separately in the way to equalise experimental and calculated solubility data. The system was formulated as an equation-oriented model and solved by means of a nonlinear programming optimisation algorithm. For all compounds the binary interaction parameters thus obtained were found to vary strongly with pressure in the range from 75 bar to approximately 150 bar, i.e. near the critical end point (CEP) of the low temperature branch of the three phase solid-liquid-gas (SLG) curve. At higher pressures, the parameter is practically independent on pressure. In general, for the systems investigated, k(ij) increases linearly with increasing density and reaches a constant value at higher densities in the range from 700 to 800 kg/m(3), depending on the system under investigation. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.