(441f) New Results for Measured Flash Point of Flammable Binary Mixtures

New results for measured flash points of flammable binary liquids.

The flash point of a chemical is the lowest temperature at which it will give off enough vapor to form ignitable mixtures with air. Flash point is an important physical property used to characterize the potential dangers of fire and explosions of chemicals. Most flash points of pure chemicals are known but little is known for mixtures. In the chemical industry, mixtures of liquids at varying temperatures and pressures are used for processes. Hence the knowledge of flash points of mixtures is very essential. This research presents measured flash points of certain flammable binary mixtures that has not been reported and also investigates the best thermodynamic model that could be used to predict the flash points of these and other mixtures. Some of the mixtures studied, include (1) aniline/ (2) ethylbenzene, (1) nitromethane / (2) ethanol and (1) acetonitrile / (2) nitromethane. For some of the mixtures, they exhibit minimum flash points. This means that the flash point is lower than the flash point of each pure individual chemical. The best thermodynamic models used to predict the flash points for the binary mixtures depended on the kind of mixtures. The mixtures were categorized under (i) ideal solutions, (ii) non-ideal solutions and (iii) moderately non-ideal solutions. The thermodynamic models studied include, Margules, Wilson, Van Laar, UNIQUAC, NRTL models and regular solution theory.