Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) are common components of many materials, such as petroleum and various types of tars. They are generally present in mixtures, occurring both naturally and as byproducts of fuel processing operations. It is important to understand the thermodynamic properties of such mixtures in order to understand better and predict their behavior (i.e., fate and transport) in the environment and in industrial operations. To characterize better the thermodynamic behavior of PAH mixtures, the phase behavior of a binary (anthracene + phenanthrene) system was studied by differential scanning calorimetry, X-ray diffraction, and the Knudsen effusion technique. Mixtures of (anthracene + phenanthrene) exhibit non-ideal mixture behavior. They form a lower-melting, phenanthrene-rich phase with an initial melting temperature of 372 K (identical to the melting temperature of pure phenanthrene) and a vapor pressure of roughly lnP/Pa = -2.38. The phenanthrene-rich phase coexists with an anthracene-rich phase when the mole fraction of phenanthrene (xP) in the mixture is less than or equal to 0.80. Mixtures initially at xP = 0.90 consist entirely of the phenanthrene-rich phase and sublime at nearly constant vapor pressure and composition, consistent with azeotrope-like behavior. Quasi-azeotropy was also observed for very high-content anthracene mixtures (2.5 < xP < 5) indicating that anthracene may accommodate very low levels of phenanthrene in its crystal structure.
Keywords: Anthracene; Binary mixtures; Phase equilibria; Phenanthrene; Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons; Vapor pressure.