Avaliação e otimização da produção de álcool anidro em destilarias brasileiras

Abstract

There is considerable industrial interest in increasing profit margins in alcohol distilleries. This interest stems from the large number of industrial columns in operation (which use a lot of energy) and the potential for developing separation methods. Regarding this need, distilleries see as an option the optimization of the process, obtaining second generation ethanol, cogeneration of electric energy, among others, in order to minimize energy consumption. This work is part of the first case, optimizing a process of production of anhydrous ethanol by azeotropic distillation with the use of cyclohexane as the third component in the energy expenditure of the plant. This simulation was performed using the software COCO employing the NRTL model to calculate the binary interaction parameters. After converging the simulation, a sensibility analysis of the decanter was carried out, relative to the temperature, and soon afterwards an optimization of the energy expenditure of the plant.