However, all separation technologies suitable for ethanol purification, such as multi-column distillation, pervaporation, liquid liquid extraction or gas stripping use the differences in the chemical and physical properties of ethanol from undesired products as a driving force for separation. Multi-column distillation is currently the standard method for the recovery of ethanol in large-scale plants (Vane, 2008). Hence, in this study distillation and rectification are used to recover ethanol from the fermentation broth with a purity of 95 vol% (Kochar et al. 1981), the as it is necessary for the subsequent dehydration process simulation flowsheet seeFig. 2B. The distillation column has 22 trays and operates at a pressure of 0.05 MPa at the bottom and a pressure drop of 0.8 kPa stage is assumed (Stichlmaier and Fair, 1998). A Murphree efficiency of 75% was set in the distillation column, since most solids are already removed during hydrolysis. This column removes the more volatile components such as acetaldehyde and CO2 at the top and most of the water and further impurities at the bottom. The distillation product with 54 vol% ethanol is stripped at stage 14 (ethanol recovery rate > 99.5% (Aden et al., 2002). And sent to the rectification column. Ethanol in the top stream of the distillation column isRecovered by the CO2 scrubber. The liquid stream at the bottom, the so-called stillage, is firstly used to pre-heat the feed of the column and then delivered to a biogas plant. The rectification column consists of 30 stages and operates at 0.42 MPa at the bottom with a pressure drop of 0.8 kPa / stage too. The Murphree efficiency is also assumed to be 75%. This column concentrates the ethanol close to he azeotropic composition. The bottom stream, so-called lutter water, is also used for pre-heating the feed of the column and then recycled for the dilution of the fibers within the enzymatic hydrolysis. As a further stream, two stages above the bottom fusel oils are stripped. The resulting purified ethanol stream is split into two parts. One part (approx. 75%) is sent to the dehydration process, where ethanol is converted to ethylene, whereas in the second part, approx 25% is recycled to the organosolv process. Due to the fact that the columns are operated at different pressure levels, thermal coupling for energy optimization is possible. The overhead vapor from the condenser of the rectification column is used as a heat source in the reboiler of the distillation column.
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