Calculation of critical points from Helmholtz-energy-explicit mixture models

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

Abstract

The calculation of the critical points for a mixture of fluids is of practical interest as the calculated critical points can be used to more reliably and efficiently construct phase envelopes. The number of stable critical points found can also provide insight into whether the mixture has an open or closed phase envelope. In this work we have developed a reliable method for determining all the critical points for a mixture that is modeled with Helmholtz-energy-explicit equations of state. This method extends the algorithms developed in the literature for simpler equations of state to these more complex mixture models. These Helmholtz-energy-explicit equations of state could be either multi-fluid models or transformations of simple cubic equations of state to Helmholtz-energy-explicit forms. This algorithm locks onto the first criticality contour (the spinodal) and traces it to high density, thereby locating all relevant critical points. The necessary analytic derivatives of the residual Helmholtz energy, numerically validated values of the derivatives for validation, sample code, and additional figures and information are provided in the supplemental material.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)159-173
Number of pages15
JournalFluid phase equilibria
Volume433
Publication statusPublished - 15 Feb 2017
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

ORCID /0000-0001-7908-4160/work/168204396

Keywords

Keywords

  • Critical points, Phase equilibria, Spinodal