Bioethanol dehydration and mixing by heterogeneous azeotropic distillation

Bioethanol is mixed with gasoline according to many countries' legislation pursuing environmental sustainability by reducing the use of fossil fuels. Bioethanol is produced by fermentation of many organic waste or biomass resources in diluted aqueous media. Unfortunately, bioethanol for fuel use must have a low content of water and its recovery is an energy intensive operation. Heterogeneous azeotropic distillation (HAD) is a well-known suitable option for dehydration of alcohols, e.g. ethanol. Many entrainers for this process are studied in literature and, in this study, is checked and verified that gasoline and gasoline additives present the lowest energy consumption. For this purpose, novel processes are proposed and rigorously simulated using AspenPlus® to verify their performance with respect to conventional processes used currently. Based on the simulation results, the processes are then compared in terms of environmental impact (expressed by the Potential Environmental Impact (PEI) index) and economic cost. Ethanol dehydration is a non-spontaneous process that requires energy to be accomplished and, on the other hand, mixing ethanol with gasoline and additives is a spontaneous process. Combining both processes in synergy in a single unit, energy consumption decreases by 50% and Potential Environmental Impact by 80%. Finally, the economic study indicated the benefits of employing the novel proposed scheme of one distillation column as CAPEX is reduced by 20% and the payback time to 1.5 years. Therefore, a novel viable process is proposed that greatly reduces the environmental impact of nowadays gasoline production.