ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the feasibility of using ionic liquids (ILs) as solvents for two different extraction types: extraction of bio-butanol from fermentation broth and that of biochemicals (acetic acid and furfural) from bio-oil derived aqueous phase. The ability to predict phase equilibria is essential for the simulation of new chemical processes and thus for process development. The predictive models should possess a sufficient accuracy over a wide range of conditions using a minimum of easily accessible parameters. Activity coefficient models, Nonrandom Two-Liquid (NRTL) and UNIversal QUAsiChemical (UNIQUAC), are thus correlative in nature. These models are not able to predict the phase equilibria without the experimental LLE data. Techniques such as ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy (UV-Vis), gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and 1H-nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy are conventionally used for the compositional analysis. Genetic algorithm (GA) is one of the most widely used evolutionary optimization algorithm in modern nonlinear optimization.
