Process Safety and Environmental Protection 8 8 ( 2 0 1 0 ) 67–73 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Process Safety and Environmental Protection journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/psep Anhydrous ethanol production by extractive distillation: A solvent case study M.A.S.S. Ravagnani a,∗ , M.H.M. Reis a , R. Maciel Filho b , M.R. Wolf-Maciel b a b State University of Maringá, Technology Center, Chemical Engineering Department, Maringá, PR, Brazil State University of Campinas, Chemical Engineering School, Department of Chemical Process, Campinas, SP, Brazil a b s t r a c t Production of anhydrous ethanol in large scale has been made by extractive distillation using conventional solvents like ethylene-glycol. In the present paper, extractive distillation process is studied to obtain pure ethanol using ethylene-glycol and tetraethylene-glycol as solvents. Residue curve maps are used to analyse the proposed distillation processes in interpreting mixture behaviours and feasibility of distillation columns. The industrial process is simulated at steady state from residue curve map analysis. Simulation results for the ethanol/water mixture using ethylene-glycol, the conventional solvent, and tetraethylene-glycol, an alternative solvent, are presented. These results showed that the process using tetraethylene-glycol is reliable, although it requires more energy than the process with ethylene-glycol. However, ethylene-glycol has a considerable toxicity level while tetraethylene-glycol is non-toxic. © 2009 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Extractive distillation; Anhydrous ethanol; Tetraethylene-glycol; Residue curve maps; Clean technology; Process simulation 1. Introduction Distillation is one of the most important separation processes, mainly because it allows separating ideal and nonideal mixtures in large scale units. The separation of homogeneous and heterogeneous azeotropic mixtures is of great industrial interest, and a large number of such distillation columns are in operation. Furthermore, the necessity in developing new feasible sequences of distillation columns has increased, in order to attend demands of clean and economical processes, as pointed in Pinto et al. (2000). The first important task before the synthesis of a separation process is to understand the mixture behaviour in terms of its appropriate trajectory (i.e., vapour–liquid, liquid–liquid or vapour–liquid–liquid equilibrium). Residue curve maps are important graphical tools, related to vapour–liquid separations, according to Fien and Liu (1994), Widagdo and Seider (1996), and Kiva et al. (2003). These authors presented very useful reviews about concepts and applications of residue curves maps. ∗ According to Doherty and Malone (2001), for extractive distillation processes, the analysis of the residue curve map enables to decide if a solvent is thermodynamically appropriated to promote the mixture separation. In the residue curve map, the pure solvent composition will be a stable node and the minimum-boiling azeotropic point will be an unstable node. Thus, the diagram will not have distillation boundaries, and it will be possible to obtain all the components as pure products, as shown in Doherty and Caldarola (1985). Nowadays, some researchs are focus on systemize residue curve analysis together with some additional tools, as unidistribution and univolatility curves, to find suitable processes and eventually suitable entrainers for the separation of zeotropic or azeotropic binary mixtures. Gerbaud et al. (2006) implemented a procedure based on residue curve map analysis in a wizard computer tool to search for a suitable process enabling the separation of binary mixtures by batch distillation. Brüggemann and Marquardt (2004) presented a shortcut design method for the simultaneous determination of minimum entrainer feed flow rate and minimum reflux ratio based Corresponding author. Tel.: +55 44 32614321; fax: +55 44 32614321. E-mail addresses: ravag@deq.uem.br, mauro.ravagnani@hotmail.com (M.A.S.S. Ravagnani). Received 18 December 2008; Received in revised form 24 November 2009; Accepted 26 November 2009 0957-5820/$ – see front matter © 2009 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.psep.2009.11.005 68 Process Safety and Environmental Protection 8 8 ( 2 0 1 0 ) 67–73 Nomenclature Ai , Bi , Ci , Di , Ei , Fi antoine equation parameters for the component i aij NRTL non-temperature-dependent energy parameter between components i and j (cal/mol) ALP parameter of the NRTL equation ALT temperature-dependent parameter of the NRTL equation (◦ C−1 ) NRTL temperature-dependent energy paramebij ter between components i and j (cal/mol K) c component number F feed flow rate (mol/h) Ki thermodynamic constant of the component i i component P pressure (kPa) Psat saturation pressure of the component i (kPa) i R ideal gas constant (cal/mol K) S solvent flow rate (mol/h) T absolute temperature (K) t temperature (◦ C) molar liquid fraction of the component i xi yi molar vapour fraction of the component i Greek symbols ˛ij NRTL non-randomness constant for binary interaction (˛ij = ˛ji ) activity coefficient of the component i i warped time ˚i fugacity coefficient of the component i on the called nonlinear analysis. This nonlinear analysis is a coupled of thermodynamic equilibrium equations with the material and heat balances around each column tray. Frits et al. (2006) applied an optimisation procedure to find all the singular points of the profile maps and, then, to analyse the feasibility of batch extractive distillation. Recently, RodriguezDonis et al. (2009a) showed that a priori knowledge of the residue curve shape and the location of the univolatility curve intersection with a diagram edge allows one to predict the distillate product obtained by extractive distillation as a first cut. Extractive distillation processes are widely used in chemical industries for separating nonideal mixtures. In Langston et al. (2005) a solvent, the heaviest component, is added causing an increase in the relative volatility of the key components and new azeotropes are not formed. Moreover, the solvent is completely miscible in the mixture, as can be seen in Seader and Henley (1998). A typical extractive distillation is the dehydration of ethanol using ethylene-glycol as solvent. The separation of the ethanol/water mixture is of great industrial interest, due to the potential of ethanol as a renewable source of energy, being used as addictive or complete substituting the gasoline, besides to be the raw material for alcohol chemistry. Ethanol is a relative clean-burning fuel. So, for this reason, the use of ethanol can also reduce the pollution emitted to the air (Vorayos et al., 2006). Lee and Pahl (1985) reported that the extractive distillation of the ethanol and water mixture consumes 50–80% of the energy used in a typical fermentation ethanol manufacturing process, showing the high necessity to improve this process in order to minimize this energy consumption. Nowadays, there is also an increasing preoccupation with the environmental issues. Jin et al. (2004) reported the green chemistry, the green engineering, and the industrial ecology principles as methodologies specifically developed for ecologically considerate chemical engineering. The authors pointed out the necessity in innovation to increase atomic utilization of reactants, efficiency in energy use, dematerialization, non-toxicity, recyclability and creative systemic cycling of materials for waste management. There are new alternative processes to separate ethanol from water. Solar distillation (Vorayos et al., 2006) can be used to concentrate ethanol until 80 (%, v/v). Fatty acids are used as liquid solvent. They are obtained from vegetable oils and animal (natural organic solvents) (Boudreau and Hill, 2006). Perez et al. (2006) carried out a parametric study to demonstrate the effects associated with changes in variables such as feed flow rate, feed pressure, module feed side, ideal separation factor and tube diameter. Some recent studies proposed the utilization of saline extractive distillation process for ethanol purification as pointed out in Pinto et al. (2000) and Ligero and Ravagnani (2003). Luyben (2009) presented a study considering the dynamic control of a pervaporation system to produce anhydrous ethanol. Guerreri (1992) stand out the pervaporation performance related to the distillation process to produce pure ethanol. Considering schemes of thermally integrated extractive distillation process, Kim (2006) presented a new system of a fully thermally coupled distillation column for the improvement of distillation column efficiency. The performance of the system that has an extra column called postfractionator and attached to the main column was examined with two industrial processes. Segovia-Hernández et al. (2006) presented a comparative study of the energy-efficiency performance between conventional distillation sequences and thermally coupled distillation arrangements (TCDS). However, most of the ethanol process industries are still using the extractive distillation to obtain anhydrous ethanol. Ethanol forms a minimum-boiling azeotrope with water at about 90 mol% at 1 atm. This azeotrope must be broken to achieve anhydrous ethanol. The usual solvent applied in the industries to promote ethanol and water separation is the ethylene-glycol. However, this compound has been related with serious environmental problems. For instance, ethyleneglycol poisoning leads to fatal intoxication (Schladt et al., 1998). In fact, ethylene-glycol has a low toxicity but it is in vivo broken down by the liver enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase to four organic acids: glycoaldehyde, glycolic acid, glyoxylic acid and oxalic acid. According to Letha and Gregersen (2005), the metabolites are cell toxins that can cause central nervous system depression and cardio-pulmonary and renal failure. Due to the ethylene-glycol toxicity, it could be forbidden in the next years, and, so, a new solvent must be proposed. Tetraethylene-glycol can be a potential solvent to substitute ethylene-glycol in the ethanol process industries. Tetraethylene-glycol does not form new azeotropes with ethanol and/or with water, is completely miscible in the mixture, and is the heaviest component. Tetraethylene-glycol with water/ethanol mixture forms a 1.0-1a class mixture (Kiva et al., 2003) and thus meets the thermodynamic feasibility criterion of extractive distillation (Knapp and Doherty, 1994; Rodriguez-Donis et al., 2009a). It is necessary to know if 69 Process Safety and Environmental Protection 8 8 ( 2 0 1 0 ) 67–73 tetraethylene-glycol is a suitable solvent to separate ethanol and water. In order to analyse both proposed processes with the different solvents, the residue curve maps for the ethanol/ water/ethylene-glycol and the ethanol/water/tetraethyleneglycol systems were build up. A computational program, developed in Fortran language, was used to calculate the residue curves. After the system characterization, both processes, with ethylene-glycol and tetraethylene-glycol as solvents, were simulated by using the HYSYS simulator. Langston et al. (2005) pointed out the high necessity to have publications on computer simulations of extractive distillation columns. Those authors used the commercial simulator HYSYS to obtain results about the separation of the systems acetone–methanol, methylacetate–methanol, and methanol–chloroform. 2. data Residue curve maps and equilibrium The concept of residue curve maps is related to a simple distillation process, where the liquid mixture is vaporized in a still and the vapour formed at any instant is immediately removed (Doherty and Perkins, 1978). This process is governed by a set of nonlinear differential equations (Eq. (1)). Residue curve maps can also be applied to continuous distillation. Van Dongen and Doherty (1985) showed that the steady-state composition profile in a packed column at total reflux is identical to a residue curve in a simple distillation process (where the height of packing is equivalent to the warped time). Moreover, residue curves show the general behaviour of continuous columns operating at finite reflux ratios (Doherty and Malone, 2001): dxi = (xi − yi ) d i = 1, 2, . . . , c − 1 (1) where xi and yi are the liquid and the vapour molar fractions for component i, is the warped time, and c is the number of components. Before Eq. (1) integration, it is necessary to find a relationship between the liquid and the vapour phases. For an ideal vapour ( = 1) in equilibrium with a nonideal liquid ( = / 1), the equilibrium equations using the – approached can be used. In this work, saturation pressures (Psat ) were calculated i applying the Antoine equation and the coefficients for this equation are presented in Table 1, for each component (Reid et al., 1988). The liquid activity coefficients were calculated using NRTL model (Renon and Praunitz, 1968) and are presented in Table 2. Meirelles et al. (1992) obtained the NRTL parameters for the ethanol/water/ethylene-glycol system by regression of different experimental isobaric and isothermal data. The interaction parameters for the tetraethylene-glycol/water and Table 1 – Antoine vapour-pressure-equation coefficientsa . Components Ethanol Water Ethylene-glycol Tetraethylene-glycol a Ai Bi 18.9119 18.3036 20.2501 16.0828 3803.98 3816.44 6022.18 2511.29 Ci −41.68 −46.13 −28.25 −41.95 These parameters are used along with ln(Psat ) = A − B/(T + C), with pressure in mmHg and temperature in K. the tetraethylene-glycol/ethanol binary pairs were obtained with regression of data generated using a Modified UNIFAC model (Gmehling et al., 1993). 2.1. Characterization and simulation results Equilibrium data (Tables 1 and 2) were used for residue curve calculations and in simulator fluid package for the systems ethanol/water/ethylene-glycol and ethanol/water/ tetraethylene-glycol. In order to analyse the process viability, extractive distillation processes with both proposed solvents were simulated and parametrically optimised to minimize energy consumptions. Simulations were carried out in steady state using the commercial simulator HYSYSTM (Hyprotech Ltd.). The flowsheet for the system ethanol/water/solvent is shown in Fig. 1. The composition of the feed stream is 85% of ethanol and 15% of water (in molar basis), corresponding approximately to the composition at the azeotropic point. Moreover, a pure solvent stream is fed some stages below the column top. Feed and solvent stream positions are parametrically optimised. The temperature of the feed stream corresponds to the saturated one. In this way, the vapour fraction in this stream is equal to 0. Fig. 1 – Flowsheet for the ethanol/water/ethylene-glycol system. Table 2 – NRTL parameters for the system ethanol (1)/water (2)/ethylene-glycol (3)/tetraethylene-glycol (4)a . i j 1 1 2 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 a aij (cal/mol) −105.5 3233.1 330.6 310.5 −90.05 aji (cal/mol) 787.1 −1040.1 −345.2 −442.1 3.856 bij (cal/mol K) 4.4 −22.2 1.9 0.0 0.0 bji (cal/mol K) 4.1 12.8 −2.2 0.0 0.0 ALP 0.171 0.370 0.186 0.300 −1.296 These parameters are used along with ˛ = ALP + ALT × t, Gij = exp(−˛ij ij ), and ij = (aij + bij T)/RT, for R = 1.987 cal/mol K. ALT (◦ C−1 ) 0.005228 − – 0.0 0.0 70 Process Safety and Environmental Protection 8 8 ( 2 0 1 0 ) 67–73 Table 3 – Choice of the best feed stream position for the extractive column for the ethanol/water/ethylene-glycol system. Feed stream position 20 25 28 30 32 35 37 Fig. 2 – Residue curve map for the system ethanol/water/ethylene-glycol at 101.3 kPa. Reboiler duty (107 kJ/h) 1.59 1.43 1.39 1.39 1.39 1.43 1.49 ratio solvent to feed flow rates (S/F), analysing the reboiler duty requirement. The practical number of stages refers to the number of stages that the column almost did not show variations in the reboiler duty, i.e., increasing the number of stages the decrease in the reboiler duty is not considerable. The word “practical” is used here to mean “feasible number of stages”, instead of use the name “infinite number of stages”, through Underwood shortcut method. The same is valid for “practical reflux ratio” to differentiate it from the one calculated from the Underwood method. 2.1.1. Ethanol/water/ethylene-glycol Fig. 3 – Reboiler duty versus number of stages of the extractive column for the system ethanol/water/ethyelene-glycol. The calculated residue curve map (Fig. 2) shows that pure ethylene-glycol is obtained as bottom product in a distillation process, from any initial liquid composition. Moreover, there are no distillation boundaries in this diagram; so, it is possible to obtain the three pure components in an extractive distillation process. According to this characterization result, ethylene-glycol seems to be a reliable solvent to separate ethanol and water through out extractive distillation process At this point, it is quite important to mention that only thermodynamically it can be affirmed that the separation of the ethanol and water mixture using ethylene-glycol as solvent is possible. Moreover, Rodriguez-Donis et al. (2009b) showed that the product sequence determined from the sole analysis of thermodynamic properties of residue curve maps and even the occurrence of unidistribution lines and univolatility A heat exchanger is used to cool the solvent stream that comes from the conventional distillation column (solvent recovery) and goes to the extractive distillation column. The temperature that the solvent is fed in the extractive column is an important parameter. If the temperature of the solvent is close to its boiling point water can be vaporized to the top of column and, so, the vaporized water can contaminate the pure ethanol stream. Solvent stream temperature was ranged from 25 ◦ C to solvent boiling point analysing the energy consumption and the convergence problem. Pure ethanol is obtained as top product from the extractive column. The recovery column separates the water/solvent mixture, in order to obtain almost pure water and pure solvent. All the recovered solvent is returned to the extractive column. The process was simulated in order to obtain almost pure ethanol (99.0%, in molar basis). Initial specifications for the simulations were total recovery from the fed ethanol and reflux ratio was minimized looking for the ethanol purity. The proposed processes were parametrically optimised in terms of the number of stages, the positions of the feed and the solvent streams, the solvent stream temperature, and the Fig. 4 – Residue curve map for the system ethanol/water/tetraehylene-glycol at 101.3 kPa. 71 Process Safety and Environmental Protection 8 8 ( 2 0 1 0 ) 67–73 Table 4 – Input and optimum conditions for the extractive distillation process with ethylene-glycol as solvent. Material streams Vapour fraction Temperature (K) Pressure (kPa) Molar flow (mol/h) Feed Solvent Pure ethanol Bottom 0 351.29 101.3 100.0 0 298.15 101.3 300.0 0 351.31 101.3 85.00 0 428.15 101.3 315.0 Component mole fraction Compositions Ethanol Water Solvent Feed Solvent Pure ethanol Bottom 0.8500 0.1500 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 1.0000 0.9908 0.0092 0.0000 0.0025 0.0451 0.9524 Energy streams 7 Heat flow (10 kJ/h) Qc1 Qr1 94.96 1.393 Unit operations Number of stages Feed stream position Solvent stream position 40 30 3 lines can be unambiguously. In terms of process viability and optimisation, it is necessary that the operational variables be well integrated in the process, such as: number of stages of all distillation columns involved, feed and solvent locations, recycled solvent temperature, ratio solvent to feed flow rates (S/F), reflux ratios, reboiler duties and productivity. Fig. 3 shows the reboiler duty versus the number of stages of the extractive column using ethylene-glycol as solvent. Analysing the presented results, it is observed that the number of practical stages is 40 (the stages are counted from the top to the bottom, and the condenser and the reboiler are not computed as stages). The best ratio solvent to feed flow (S/F) is 3, since for smaller values the simulation did not converge for the given specifications and for greater values the duty requirements increases. Mainly for nonideal mixture separations, the position of the feed stream influences on the optimised results. Depending on the feed and the solvent stream positions, the energy consumption can be lesser or greater, or even it is not possible to get the simulation convergence. Table 3 shows the values of the reboiler duty as function of the feed stream position for the ethanol/water/ethylene-glycol system. It was considered a column with 40 stages and the solvent stream in the optimum position (stage number 3). The reboiler Table 5 – Input and optimum conditions for the extractive distillation process with tetraethylene-glycol as solvent. Material streams Vapour fraction Temperature (K) Pressure (kPa) Molar flow (mol/h) Feed Solvent Pure ethanol Bottom 0 351.29 101.3 100.0 0 298.15 101.3 200.0 0 351.31 101.3 85.00 0 470.45 101.3 215.00 Component mole fraction Ethanol Water Solvent Compositions Feed Solvent Pure ethanol Bottom 0.8500 0.1500 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 1.0000 0.9914 0.0086 0.0000 0.0034 0.0664 0.9302 Energy streams 7 Heat flow (10 kJ/h) Qc1 Qr1 34.38 1.798 Unit operations Number of stages Feed stream position Solvent stream position 50 45 3 72 Process Safety and Environmental Protection 8 8 ( 2 0 1 0 ) 67–73 duty is increased when the solvent stream position is above stage 6. Feed stream position that gets the smallest energy consumption is at stage number 30. For the recovery column, the best feed stream position is at the middle of the column. The obtained results showed that the best temperature for the solvent stream is 25 ◦ C. Table 4 presents the input and optimum results for anhydrous ethanol production with ethylene-glycol as solvent. 2.1.2. Ethanol/water/tetraethylene-glycol Although simulation and practical results showed that ethylene-glycol is a reliable solvent to promote ethanol/water separation, some studies show that this solvent has a considerable toxicity level. In the present paper, tetraethylene-glycol is presented as an alternative solvent to produce anhydrous ethanol looking for new demands of clean and safe processes. Fig. 4 shows that tetraethylene-glycol is also a reliable solvent to promote the separation of ethanol/water mixture by extractive distillation process, since the residue curve map does not present any distillation boundary. However, all design and operation conditions must be observed to guarantee the viability of the process and its optimisation. This system was simulated using the same input parameters and specifications used for the ethanol/water/ethylene-glycol system. The parametric optimisation was carried out and the results obtained are summarised in Table 5. Analysing these results, it was concluded that, using tetraethylene-glycol as solvent to separate ethanol and water, the number of practical stages is 50, corresponding to a reboiler duty equal to 1.8 × 107 kJ/h. It represents a value 1.3 times greater than the energy spent in the process with ethylene-glycol as solvent. Ethylene-glycol has a enthalpy of vaporization equal to 61.9 ± 6.3 kJ/mol, while the enthalpy of vaporization of tetraethylene-glycol is 99 ± 10 kJ/mol (Gallaugher and Hibbert, 1937). It explains the higher heat duty required in the process with tetraethyleneglycol. 3. Concluding remarks Residue curve maps are important tools to understand the behaviour of a mixture in its whole range of molar composition. In the case of extractive distillation, one of the main applications of these diagrams is in the choice of appropriate solvents. The residue curve map of the ethanol/water/tetraethylene-glycol system shows that tetraethylene-glycol can be used to separate this azeotropic mixture, after suitable choices of design and operating conditions of the process. The system with tetraethylene-glycol as solvent needs more energy than the system with ethylene-glycol. Moreover, it is necessary more tetraethylene-glycol than ethylene-glycol. Furthermore, when the solvent is the tetraethylene-glycol, the extractive column must be larger. However, an important consideration must be done in this paper. Based on the environmental issues, the use of tetraethylene-glycol as solvent is justified because it is nontoxic, while the ethylene-glycol has a considerable toxicity level. Taking into account the considerable efforts that have been done to substitute toxic solvents from industrial plants the use of tetraethylene-glycol must be considered as a viable alternative in substituting the ethylene-glycol in the anhydrous ethanol production in the ethanol distilleries. As future works, the optimisation of energy consumption in this process must be considered, as well as the application of other characterization tools, as the univolatility curves. Acknowledgements The authors are grateful to CNPq (571683/19975 + 141893/2002-8), CAPES and Fapesp for the financial support. References Boudreau, T.M. and Hill, G.A., 2006, Improved ethanol-water separation using fatty acids. Process Biochemistry, 41: 980–983. Brüggemann, S. and Marquardt, W., 2004, Shortcut methods for nonideal multicomponent distillation. 3. Extractive distillation column. AIChE Journal, 50: 1129–1149. 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