In this paper, design and optimization procedures are developed for a conventional extractive distillation sequence and a thermally coupled extractive distillation scheme. The proposedmethodologies detect the optimal values of the design variables in order to guarantee theminimumenergy consumption. It was found that the optimumenergy consumption can be related to the minimum total annual operat...

In this work, we obtain and compare the control properties of thermally coupled reactive distillation sequences and thermally coupled extractive distillation sequences with those of conventional reactive and extractive distillation configurations. All sequences have been designed using a multiobjective genetic algorithm with restrictions. The theoretical control properties of those schemes were...

Bioethanol is among the most promising of biofuels because it has an energy content similar to gasoline while generating lower pollutant emissions than gasoline. But, in order to be used as an automotive fuel mixed with gasoline, ethanol must have less than 0.5 wt % of water. To achieve required ethanol purity, in light of the fact that the ethanol water mixture forms an azeotrope, unconvention...

In this work, we analyze the control properties of thermally coupled reactive distillation sequences and thermally coupled extractive distillation sequences in comparison with conventional reactive and extractive distillation configurations. All sequences have been designed using a multi objective genetic algorithm with restrictions. We study the theoretical control properties of those schemes ...

The structure of thermally coupled distillation systems offers several control challenges arising from the transfer of vapor (or liquid) streams between columns. In particular, the presence of recycle streams for coupled schemes has led to the notion that control problems might be expected during the operation of these systems, in contrast to the rather well-known behavior of conventional disti...

Extractive distillation is an alternative for ethanol dehydration processes that has been shown to be more effective than azeotropic distillation and, in close proximity, to be very competitive against the process that uses adsorption with molecular sieves. Glycols have been shown to be the most effective solvents in extractive distillation, mainly ethylene glycol and glycerol. In this work, an...

The influence of operating conditions to the effectiveness of extractive distillation process was investigated by using the method of gas chromatography. The experiment took place on an industrial vacuum plant of purification ethanol from impurities formed during fermentation. It is obtained that the concentration of different micro impurities at the selection zones depends on the temperature a...

The effectiveness of an extractive distillation process relies on the choice of the extractive solvent. The conventional methodology to select solvents is based on Group Contribution Methods. Ionic liquids have shown several advantages over conventional solvents used in extractive distillation and liquid-liquid extraction processes. However, there is no existing methodology to select ILs as sol...

Extractive distillation is one of the efficient techniques for separating azeotropic and low-relativevolatility mixtures in various chemical industries. This paper first provides an overview of thermodynamic insight covering residue curve map analysis, the application of univolatility and unidistribution curves, and thermodynamic feasibility study. The pinch-point analysis method combining bifu...