Techno-economic optimization of plant for raw ethanol production based on experimental data

This paper concerns techno-economic optimization of the production process of raw ethanol in a continuous distillation column as a part of the plant for production of rectified alcohol. Optimization was performed in order to determine the optimal ethanol concentration in the residue, which provides the minimum total production costs of existing plant. Total production costs are determined on the basis of experimental data, investment and operating costs and the estimated working life of the plant. It was found that ethanol concentration in the residue is significantly higher than values that can be found in the open literature.