Eco-efficient butanol separation in the ABE fermentation process

This work proposes a new process for the butanol recovery by enhanced distillation (e.g. dividing-wall column technology) using only few operating units in an optimized sequence to reduce overall costs. A plant capacity of 40 ktpy butanol is considered and purities of 99.4 wt% butanol, 99.4 wt% acetone and 91.4 wt% ethanol. The complete downstream processing was rigorously simulated and optimized using Aspen Plus. The enhanced process is effective in terms of eco-efficiency (1.24 kWh/kg butanol, significant lower costs and emissions) and can be readily employed at large scale to improve the economics of biobutanol production.