Exergy Load Distribution Analysis Applied to the Dehydration of Ethanol by Extractive Distillation

This study presents the analysis of exergy load distribution in a separation process by extractive distillation for ethanol dehydration. The methodology carried out is divided into three parts: calculation flow considering physical and chemical exergies process; primary transformed contributions consumed exergy; finally, overall efficiency, which shows real percentage energy being used process. simulation an system using Aspen Plus®, from Tech Version 9. In general, heat transfer processes (heating or cooling) are ones that generate greatest exegetic destruction, why they must be operations optimized. As result our case study, local efficiency column 13.80%, operation with loss, 30.67%. Then, order to increase sensitivity performed variation azeotrope feed, number stages, reflux ratio, solvent feed on purity reach 33.53%. classified as higher than specified, 99.65%.