Process analysis of extractive distillation for the separation of ethanol-water using deep eutectic solvent as entrainer

Abstract Deep eutectic solvents (DESs) as novel entrainers can be used for the separation of azeotropic mixture, and have received much attention in recent years. However, the researches about DESs mainly focus on vapor–liquid equilibrium (VLE) and extractive distillation experiment. In this work, an overall extractive distillation process for ethanol dehydration using ChCl/Urea (1:2) as entrainer is investigated. The physical properties of the DES are defined by correlating the experimental data. Three thermodynamic methods are employed to describe the phase behavior of ethanol–water–ChCl/Urea (1:2) system. COSMO-based theory is adopted to explain the differences in separation performance among ChCl/Urea (1:2), glycerol and [EMIM][BF4]. The design parameters of extractive distillation process are optimized by multi-objective generic algorithm (MOGA) with minimum total annual cost (TAC), minimum CO2 emissions E C O 2 and maximum efficiency indicator of extractive section (EExt) as objective functions. In addition, the control structure of extractive process is studied by Aspen Dynamics, and the proposed control structure could resist fresh feed flow rate and composition disturbances. The results show that ChCl/Urea (1:2) exhibits better separation performance in ethanol dehydration compared with glycerol and [EMIM][BF4]. Both COSMOSAC model relying on molecular information and NRTL model based on experimental data can well describe the vapor–liquid behavior containing ChCl/Urea (1:2). Entrainer purity plays an important role in extractive distillation process, and a proper concentration rather than nearly pure entrainer should arouse our attention in extractive distillation process. DESs as promising novel entrainers can be used in extractive distillation industrial for separating azeotrope.