Extractive Distillation of Acetone/Methanol Mixture Using Water as Entrainer

Abstract

The acetone-methanol extractive distillation using water as an entrainer was simulated on Aspen Plus software package using rigorous methods. Calculation of the vapor-liquid equilibrium for the ternary system was done by the UNIQUAC model according to the experimental results obtained in a previous work. The effects of the solvent to feed molar ratio, reflux ratio, feed stage, feed solvent stage, and solvent feed temperature were studied to obtain the best design of the extractive distillation column with minimal energy requirements. The most appropriate configuration is 52 theoretical stages. The best binary mixture and entrainer feeding stages were obtained at 48 and 22 respectively with a solvent to feed molar and reflux ratio of 2.0 and 5.0, respectively. The simulation results show the effect of the main variables on the extractive distillation process.

Extractive Distillation Process Optimisation of the 1.0-1a Class System, Acetone - methanol with Water

“…For the extractive distillation process both the extractive column and the entrainer regeneration column should be included and connected with the solvent recycle stream. For finding optimal parameters for the acetone -methanol separation with water, some authors have run a sensitivity analysis over the process variables, namely the reflux ratio, the entrainer-feed flow rate ratio, the number of trays in each of the rectifying, extractive, stripping column sections and the distillate flow rate (Hilal et al, 2002, Langston et al, 2005, Lyuben, 2008, Gil et al, 2009. However, the procedure is tedious and may fail to find the best solution.…”

Reducing energy consumption and CO2 emissions in extractive distillation: Part II. Dynamic behavior

“…Extractive distillation is widely used in several different processes: recovery of aromas or fragrances (Pollien et al, 1998;Chaintreau, 2001), separation of aqueous alcohol solutions (Pinto et al, 2000;Zhigang et al, 2002;Llano-Restrepo and Aguilar-Arias, 2003), mixtures which exhibit an azeotrope (Wu et al, 2007;Gil et al, 2009) and separation of hydrocarbons with close boiling points (Wentink et al, 2007;Abushwireb et al, 2007). Recently, the use of ionic liquids as entrainers in the extractive distillation of certain mixtures has also been introduced (Shiflett and Yokozeki, 2006;Zhang et al, 2007).…”

Separating an azeotropic mixture of toluene and ethanol via heat integration pressure swing distillation

“…The addition of a third component is required for some separations to shift the vapor-liquid equilibrium, which tends to increase the operating costs. The books written by Gil and Botía introduce extractive distillation to achieve the separation of an acetone/methanol mixture (Gil et al, 2009). A comparison between extractive distillation and pressure swing distillation (PSD) to separate the azeotropic mixture of acetone and methanol was made by Luyben (2008a).…”