Bench Plant Test and Process for the Separation of Ethanol-Water Solution Using Super- and Subcritical Propane Solvent Extraction

Abstract

Dehydration of a fermented or synthetic crude ethanol using sub- and supercritical C₃H₈ solvent extraction was studied and developed.
A bench-scale plant (maximum feed rate of about 10 kg/h) was constructed, and ethanol was extracted and separated using C₃H₈ as solvent. The results of bench plant tests and process simulation incorporating phase equilibrium models developed by us were employed in the optimization of process conditions. It can be concluded that ethanol is easily concentrated from 10 wt% to 99.9 wt% with a small energy consumption of approximately 1193 kJ/l of product.