Iranian Journal of Chemical Engineering (IJChE)

Abstract The design of installations in the chemical industry requires knowledge of the thermodynamic properties of liquid mixtures. In the absence of experimental data, accurate predictive methods are needed. In this work, the refractive index and the surface tension are experimentally determined at different temperatures and atmospheric pressure, for the binary and ternary systems of benzyl alcohol, n-hexanol and water, less studied in the literature. Two models were developed for the correlation of excess surface tension with composition, normalized temperature and refractive index. The statistical processing of the experimental data with the multiple linear regression method allowed the development of a model for which, in the validation stage, the correlation coefficient was 0.9086 and the standard deviation was 4.36. With the best performing neural model, a correlation coefficient of 0.9727 and a standard deviation of 2.14 were obtained in the validation stage.

Abstract Total combustion of methyl ethyl ketone and benzyl alcohol as two models of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) using catalytic method was studied over γ-Al2O 3 and Mn/γ-Al2O 3 catalysts. Catalyst (Mn/γ-Al2O 3) was prepared by wet impregnation and characterized using XRD, BET, ICP-AES and SEM methods and the nanostructure of the catalyst were approved. The activity of the catalysts was measured in a catalytic packed bed reactor under atmospheric pressure and different reaction temperatures at range 150 to 450°C. The studies confirmed that manganese supported on γ-Al2O 3 can be suitable for the abatement of the mentioned pollutants from contaminated air and hopefully holds the promise for the elimination of VOC containing hazardous materials in industrial applications.