Heat Integrated Ethanol Dehydration Flowsheets

Abstract

A theoretical evaluation of heat-integrated heterogeneous-azeotropic ethanol-water distillation flowsheets is presented. Simulations of two column flowsheets using several different hydrocarbon entrainers reveal a region of potential heat integration and substantial reduction in operating energy. In this paper, methods for comparing hydrocarbon entrainers are shown.

Two aspects of entrainers are related to operating and capital costs. The binary azeotropic composition of the entrainer-ethanol mixture is related to the energy requirements of the flowsheet. A temperature difference in the azeotropic column is related to the size of the column and overall process staging requirements. Although the hydrophobicity of an entrainer is essential for specification of staging in the dehydration column, no substantial increase in operating energy results from an entrainer that has a higher water content. Likewise, liquid-liquid equilibria between several entrainer-ethanol-water mixtures have no substantial effect on either staging or operation. Rather, increasing the alcohol content of the entrainer-ethanol azeotrope limits its recovery in the dehydration column, and increases the recycle and reflux streams. These effects both contribute to increasing the separation energy requirements and reducing the region of potential heat integration.

A cost comparison with a multieffect extractive distillation flowsheet reveals that the costs are comparable; however, the extractive distillation flowsheet is more cost effective as operating costs increase.

The destruction of organic model substances by indirect electrooxidation was investigated. The oxidation agent Co(III) was used because of the high redox potential of the Co(III)/Co(II) redox couple (E₀ = 1.808 V).

Several supercritical fluid extraction (SCFE) processes have been proposed for removing toxic and intractable organic compounds from a range of contaminated solids. These include soil remediation and the regeneration of adsorbents used to treat wastewater streams such as granular activated carbon (GAC). As a separation technique for environmental control, SCFE has several distinct advantages over conventional liquid extraction methods and incineration. Most notably, the contaminant is removed from the solvent in a concentrated form via a change in pressure or temperature and can be completely separated upon expansion to atmospheric pressure.

The viability of SCFE hinges on process conditions such as solvent-feed ratio and solvent recycle ratio. The necessity of recycling solvent complicates the contaminant separation step since a complete reduction to atmospheric pressure would create large recompression costs. Because of this, the pressure and temperature dependence of contaminant solubility must be understood so that operating conditions for the separation step can be defined. Fortunately, this is the most developed aspect of SCF technology. However, the mass transfer limitations to removing contaminants from solids change with solvent flow rate.

This paper discusses the use of SCFE for environmental control and presents results for the removal of DDT and 2-chlorophenol from GAC. 2-chlorophenol is almost completely removed with pure CO₂ at 40°C and 101 bar while only 55% of the DDT is removed at 40°C and 200 bar. These differences in regeneration efficiency cannot be understood solely in terms of solubility but point to a need for detailed studies of adsorption equilibrium and mass transfer resistances in supercritical fluid systems.