Necessary and sufficient conditions for reactive azeotropes in multi-reaction mixtures in terms of elemental composition

Necessary and sufficient conditions for azeotropy in reactive mixtures are derived in terms of elemental composition, which shows that in the space of elemental compositions, they take the same functional form as the conditions for azeotropy in non-reactive mixtures. The production of methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) is taken as an example. It is found that there are a "pseudo" intermediate-boiling ternary reactive azeotrope at p = 101.325 kPa and two "real" ternary reactive azeotropes at p = 101.325 Pa. The introduced elemental compositions also reduce the dimensionality of the phase diagrams and provide a natural set of variables for visualization of phase behavior.