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Abstract
Isopropanol (IPA) is a major solvent in the semiconductor industry. During production, IPA is often obtained as an aqueous mixture that forms an azeotrope. Azeotropic distillation, commonly used to separate the azeotrope, has high energy requirements. The current work explores hybrid processes pairing distillation with temperature swing adsorption (TSA) (with activated carbon) or with pressure vacuum swing adsorption (PVSA) (with 3A zeolite). The feed was 10 mol% IPA and target purity was 99.9999 mole%. Optimized distillation/adsorption hybrid schemes were compared to optimized azeotropic distillation. On the basis of total yearly costs, distillation-PVSA was found to be the most economical scheme followed by azeotropic distillation and then distillation-TSA.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Support from Eastman Chemical Company and from Purdue University is gratefully acknowledged.
Notes
*Updated to year 2009 using M & S index.
*Blower cost not included. Further increase in temperature increases the pressure drop across the adsorbers.
†Assumption of no water adsorption needs to be checked experimentally.
4-step cycle.
Cycletime = 2 * (adsorption time + blowdown time).
Adsorption time = desorption time, blowdown time = repressurization (w/feed) time.
6-step cycle.
Cycletime = 2 * (adsorption time).
Adsorption time = desorption time + blowdown time + repressurization (w/product) time.
Blowdown time = repressurization (w/product) time.
*Algenol Biofuels, 16121 Lee Road, Fort Myers, FL 33912.