The effect of three
dissolved salts, namely, sodium chloride, sodium
sulfate, and magnesium sulfate, on the liquid–liquid equilibrium
of phenol extraction from aqueous phase by (propan-2-yl) benzene (cumene)
was investigated at the temperature of 298.2 K and the ambient pressure
of 81.5 kPa. Salts with mass fractions of 0.005 and 0.020 in water
were used and significant enhancement in the phenol extraction was
achieved compared to salt-free system. Results showed that the presence
of salts caused the solute separation factor to reach as (46.29 and
95.81)% with NaCl, (63.52 and 165.19)% with Na2SO4, and (86.39 and 238.55)% with MgSO4, related to the used
low and high salt concentrations. Therefore, the salting-out effect
appeared in the order MgSO4 > Na2SO4 > NaCl, in agreement with the Hofmeister series. The Eisen–Joffe
equation confirmed the consistency of experimental tie-line data.
To correlate the obtained data, the well-known NRTL and UNIQUAC thermodynamic
models were satisfactorily used and the maximum root-mean-square deviations
were as low as 0.0071 and 0.0013 for these models, respectively.