Solvent Evaluation for Ecogasoline Production Via Two Step Process

Ternary liquid-liquid equilibria were simulated and compared with experimental data for the following systems: ethanol-water-octane, ethanol-water-diesel, ethanol-water- oleic acid and ethanol-water-nonanoic acid.

Separation of ethanol from water using an extraction stage with one the aforementioned solvents followed by a distillation column or viceversa, was then simulated with similar feeds, ethanol recovery and product specifications with the final goal of producing commercial ethanol/hydrocarbon fuel blends (i.e. E10, E85).

The operational parameters, such as solvent-to-feed ratio, number of stages and energy consumption, were estimated and compared to available ethanol-water separation processes.

The available equilibrium data for each system was reproduced with the simulator and a process for the production of E10 via distillation followed by extraction with gasoline was modeled and found to require less energy than the compared available technologies.