Liquid-Liquid Equilibrium on Equilateral Triangle Phase Diagrams

Tie lines:
Show the
compositions of the
equilibrium phases

Solubilities of three component liquids are important information for designing liquid-liquid
extraction processes to separate out chemicals.
Solubilities for three-component liquid mixtures are conveniently displayed on an equilateral
triangle.
Each vertex of the triangle represents a pure component.
The top vertex represents pure component B; the right vertex represents pure C; and the left
vertex represents pure A.
Each of the three sides of the triangle represents a binary (two-component) mixture.
For example, the right side of the triangle represents mixtures of B and C; the left side represents
mixtures of A and B; and the base represents mixtures of A and C. Inside the triangle we have
mixtures containing all three components.
The mole fraction (or mass fraction, as the case may be) for each component is found by reading
the distance from the base of the triangle opposite the vertex for that component.
So, for example, component B is the top vertex and anywhere on the first blue line from the
bottom base will be 10% B; anywhere on the next higher blue line will be 20 % B; and so on
until 100% B is reached at the vertex.
Likewise, C is the right vertex and so any of the red lines parallel with the base opposite C tells
us the mol% of C in the mixture. Thus the first line up from the base opposite C represents 10
mol% C, etc.
The green lines represent mol% of A starting from the base opposite pure A being 0% A and
increasing the amount of A as the green lines get closer to the left vertex. A point on the right
side of the triangle where the blue 30% line intersects the side represents 30% B and 70% C.
The point where the red, blue and green lines cross just above the gray area represents a ternary
mixture containing 60% B, 20% A and 20% C.
Example:

A 1000 kg/h mixture of 30 wt% acetic acid and 70 wt % water is to be fed to a countercurrent extraction
process. The solvent is 99 wt% isopropyl ether and 1 wt % acetic acid and has an inlet flow rate of 2500
kg/h. The raffinate stream should contain 5 wt % acetic acid.

a) Calculate the raffinate and extract stream flow rates.

b) Find the number of equilibrium stages.