2003 Volume 16 Issue 1 Pages 62-66
To minimize process energy consumption of absolute alcohol by distillation and the vapour recompression technique, the procedure was undertaken with computer simulation. The simulation of Azeotropic Distillation using Benzene, Cyclohexane and Carbondisulfide consisted of two distillation columns, mixer, decanter and heat exchanger. The vapour recompression with a compressor compressed the vapour from the first column to 2500 mmHg. The result pointed that the vapour recompression process can reduce the energy consumption by 22.16% compared to the conventional distillation. Carbondisulfide as azeotrope mixture consumes the lowest energy which is 16.76 MJ/kg-Ethanol 100%, while Benzene consumes 17.35 MJ/kg-Ethanol 100%. However, Benzene is the most favourable azeotrope mixture because of lowest cost and high availability. The economical analysis showed that the vapour recompression process reduces the cost of equipment up to 38.19% and the maintenance up to 44.04%, because of the smaller size of equipments. The net present value of this process is 338, 454.92 US whereas the other is 543, 887.17 US.
