The liquid-liquid equilibrium of 16 ternary systems containing an ionic liquid + n-hexane + an organic compound involved in the racemic resolution of rac-1-phenylethanol (rac-1-phenylethanol, vinyl propionate, 1-phenylethyl propionateorpropionic acid) at 298.2K and atmospheric pressure have been measured. The ionic liquids used were (i) 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate, [bmim(+)][PF6(-)]; (ii) 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate, [bmim(+)][BF4(-)]; (iii) 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium tosilate, [emim(+)][TOS-] and (iv) 1-butyl-3-methyl imiclazolium ethylenglykolmonomethylethersulfate, [bmim(+)][MDEGSO(4)(-)]. The binodal curves and the tie line compositions of the conjugate solutions were obtained by means of refractive index (ionic liquid rich phase) and by gas cromatography (hexane rich phase) to determine their potential for selectively extracting organic compounds from an ionic liquid reaction mixture. The tie lines were correlated by using the NTRL equation, which provides good correlation of the experimental data. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.