Simulação e otimização do processo de destilação extrativa com integração energética para produção de etanol anidro.

Abstract

One of the greatest commercial interests of azeotropic mixtures is ethanol-water. Consequently, extractive distillation appears as a method of separation for this kind of mixture, regarding its simple operation with a good extractive agent. The excessive use of energy in a distillation column points forward the investigation alternative ways of economy. The purpose of this simulation work, using Hysim, is to optimize an anhidrous ethanol production unit regarding a model case (sequencial columns) and a suggested case (energetical integration), establishing an evaluation and optimization of the most significants parameters for each column, trying to minimize the energy consumption. Sensitivity of some parameters as: concentration of ethanol in the feed, solvent ratio, positions double of the feeding and purity of the final product, as also its influences in the energy consumption was evaluated. The viability of the technique of energy integration was also analyzed comparing the temperature, total outflow of liquid and vapor and composition profiles for the model and suggest cases. The results show that an optmized unity can reduce the use of energy in about 20% regarding instalation conditions. With an energetic integration scheme, an economy of 33% is obtained comparing to the energy required by the optimized unity without termical integration.