Dehydration of Aqueous Ethanol Mixtures By Extractive Distillation

Abstract

This paper investigate the dehydration of ethanol by extractive distillation process with salt in solvent and also without salt. There are many sources to produce ethanol. It can be obtained from plants and agricultural wastes as well as olefins from cracking units of petroleum refining. Because the methods of ethanol production are the hydration method and fermentation, water molecules are present in ethanol. It has to be dehydrated to use as a fuel in automobile engines and other applications. There are many methods to separate water from ethanol to improved concentration. In this paper, the dehydration of ethanol is carried out by extractive distillation process and use ethylene glycol as a separating agent with calcium chloride as salt in order to improve the concentration of ethanol. Different ratios of ethanol-water and ethylene glycol such as (1:1:0, 1:1:0.25, 1:1:0.25 (20% of solvent)) were tested to obtain the best result of concentration percent. The maximum ethanol concentration was 92 vol% which obtained from 52 vol% ethanol in feed mixture.