Alcohol Distillation Plant Simulation: Thermal and Hydraulic Studies

Due to the current Colombian policies that demand to use less pollutant fuelsthere has been an important growth in the local anhydrous ethanol industry. This makes necessary to improve the existing process by increasing the global efficiency and reducing the overall energy consumption. In this work, simulations of an industrial alcohol distillery are made using Aspen Plus®software. The base production is set at 250 cubic meters per day and sugar cane juice is used as raw material. The results are in good agreement with those that are daily obtained inside the plant, and they are used as start-point to propose improvements to the process. In addition, thermal and hydraulic studies of the distillation columns are performed in order to evaluate the possibility of expanding the net production rate to 300 cubic meters per day.