Three-phase distillation. Simulation and application to the separation of fermentation products

Downstream Process Synthesis for Biochemical Production of Butanol, Ethanol, and Acetone from Grains: Generation of Optimal and Near-Optimal Flowsheets with Conventional Operating Units

“…The desired products, B, E, and A, are stripped and withdrawn in the upper stream. This stream contains 36 wt % of B, 3 wt % of E, 14 wt % of A, and 47 wt % of W. Among these components, the combination of E and W and that of W and B form azeotropes, whereas the others do not (10,22,23,25; also see Appendix 6, Supporting Information). Thus, the complete separation of all of the components requires azeotropic distillation as well as simple distillation if distillation is to be solely adopted in the processing further downstream; each azeotrope behaves as if it is a single component in a simple distillation.…”

“…Two binary azeotropes, homogeneous (EW) and heterogeneous (WB), are formed in a mixture containing B, E, A, and W (10,22,23,25). Additional information besides the volatilities of the components involved, e.g., residual curve map (RCM), is necessary to identify a feasible distillation system for separating any azeotrope (1,32).…”

“…These methods include gas stripping (19)(20)(21), distillation (22)(23)(24)(25), extraction (19), adsorption (20), and pervaporation (14,21,26). Almost all of these methods, or unit operations, are among the major means for bioseparations (16,18,27,28).…”

“…At the very initial, or macroscopic, phase of flowsheet synthesis, any complex distillation unit, usually containing two or more pieces of processing equipment, can be regarded as a single operating unit, the composition of which gives rise to separate network synthesis (29)(30)(31)(32). The data required for such synthesis involving butanol, ethanol, acetone, and water are available (22,23,25). Gas stripping is as simple as or even simpler than simple distillation.…”

Monte Carlo Molecular Simulation of Phase-coexistence for Oil Production and Processing

“…Phase coexistence is important for many industrial and engineering applications, such as, the separation of mixtures by distillation column [2], the transportation instability due to blockage by natural gas hydrates [3] or sulfur deposition [4], CO2 sequestration [5] and enhanced oil recovery [6]. Nevertheless, the MC algorithm based on tranditional ensembles suffers some important limitations when simulating phase coexistence problem.…”