Measurement and Correlation of Solubility of Dicumyl Peroxide in Ethanol and Water
State Key Laboratory of Green Chemical Engineering and Industrial Catalysis, Shanghai Research Institute of Petrochemical Technology, SINOPEC, Shanghai 201208, China
Abstract When dicumyl peroxide is produced by cooling crystallization in industry，there are often product quality problems such as excessive fine powders, crystal agglomerations, and low yield of large crystals. The main reason of quality problems is the lack of accurate solubility data and the inability to precisely control the cooling crystallization process. The solubility of dicumyl peroxide in ethanol-water mixed solvents with different water ratios from 274.65-303.65 K (1.5-30.5 ℃) were measured by equilibrium method, and the experimental data were correlated by Van't Hoff equation, Apelblat equation, and λh equation respectively. The results showed that the solubility of dicumyl peroxide in ethanol-water mixed solvents increased with increasing temperature. Ethanol was a good solvent, and dicumyl peroxide had the highest solubility in pure ethanol. Water was a poor solvent, and the solubility of dicumyl peroxide decreased with the increase of water ratio. The above three models could be well used to correlate the solubility of dicumyl peroxide with temperature variation. The correlation coefficients (R2) were all above 0.98. When the water ratio was small (0%-5%), the correlation result of λh equation was the best. When water ratio was large (10%-20%), the Apelblat equation had the best correlation result. The solubility data and correlation results are very useful for the optimization of dicumyl peroxide crystallization process.
