HEAT FLOWS INTEGRATION OF DISTILLATION AND EPURATION COLUMNS INTO THE PRODUCTION PROCESS OF RECTIFIED ETHYL ALCOHOL

Today, ethyl alcohol is widely used in many industries. Ethanol production processes from any organic matter often involve rectification, which is an energy-intensive process. The constant increase in the cost of energy leads to a significant growth of the cost of production. Reducing the unit energy consumption can solve a range of important issues: first, that of decreasing production cost, and secondly, that of nationwide dependence on external energy suppliers. A detailed analysis of the thermal energy potential of technological flows aimed at solving the problem of reducing energy consumption inspires the development of more energy-efficient solutions for organizing this processes. The search for alternative solutions demonstrates that one of the methods of reducing the unit energy consumption for ethanol production, in particular one that does not require a total restructuring of the production lines, is the method of integration of processes based on pinch analysis. The extraction of these technological flows was carried out on the basis of the regulatory documentation of the hardware-technological scheme of the centralized ethyl alcohol head fraction distillation plant and the energy audit report of that plant, which was carried out at one of the alcohol enterprises of Ukraine. A distillation and a purification column were selected from the centralized ethyl alcohol distillation plant for thermal integration of the existing process. The thermal and material balances of the ethyl alcohol head fraction distillation plant columns were calculated. To maximize the energy potential of the heat flows, the principles of pinch design were applied and a grid diagram of heat exchanger networks was designed. To maximize the recovery of thermal energy, the difference ΔTmin was set to - 3ºC. This led to the need to use energy-efficient heat exchange equipment. A significant reduction in the use of external utilities (by 48% for cold utilitie and by 38% for hot utilitie) for selected heat flows and a short payback period for the project (approximately three months) makes this solution viable.

Green corrosion inhibitor: Cymbopogon schoenanthus extract in an acid cleaning solution for aluminum brass

The purpose of this study was to see if Cymbopogon schoenanthus aerial extract (CSA extract) could reduce the corrosion of aluminum brass in acid cleaning solutions in the distillation plant. For this assessment, measurements of weight loss and polarization technique have all been used. We discovered that at 250 ppm, the efficiency of CSA extract was excellent (97%). Polarization assessments confirmed that the organic compounds in CSA extract were effective mixed-type corrosion inhibitors. HPLC and FTIR analysis were used to explore the key chemical components of CSA extract. CSA extract caused the corrosion process to have a higher energy barrier. Observations of SEM and FT-IR spectra confirmed that CSA extract prevents corrosion attacks at the aluminum brass’s surface.

Improvements in Recovery Efficiencies of Phenols from Phenol Fraction Using Two-Stage Alkali Treatment

Experiments were carried out for the recovery of phenols from phenol fraction procured from tar distillation plant of Visakhapatnam steel plant by two stage alkali treatment, to study the effect of two-stage alkali treatment on the yield of phenols from phenol fraction. The results of the present investigation showed that two-stage alkali wash gives better yields of phenols compared to single stage alkali wash of the same phenol fraction with the same strength of alkali solution (NaOH). Also it is shown that maximum yield of phenols could be obtained with 35% strength of alkali. In the first stage 70% of 35% strength solution was used while in the second stage treatment 30% of the same strength solution was used. Improvements in the recovery efficiencies of phenols were found to be 47% more than those reported earlier in the single-stage extraction studies for the same strength of alkali solutions.