Abstract
Gas stripping-vapor permeation (GSVP) is an attractive method for in situ acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) separation from fermentation broth to obtain renewable biological n-butanol. However, the downstream distillation systems for effective purification of ABE from the upstream GSVP process has not been developed. In this study, focusing on the generation of high purify A-B-E solvents as the final products, the downstream distillation systems for GSVP condensate purification were investigated. According to literature survey, four candidate distillation sequences were selected and optimized by steady-state simulation, followed by cross-over comparisons of energy requirements, techno-economics and environmental influences. The results indicate that the Scenario 3 that containing three individual columns and one decanter exhibited the lowest sensitivity to the key factors, lowest total annual cost (6.483 × 106 $/yr) and CO2 emission (3707.23 kg/h) in a scheme with 30 kt/yr n-butanol production among the four candidate distillation sequences. This study provides a valuable reference for the development of downstream ABE separation and purification processes in future works.
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