Very Dilute Ethanol Recovery from Water
Very Dilute Ethanol Recovery from Water
(OP)
I was wondering if anybody knows a company or method that could potentially recover ethanol present at only 0.1 wt% in water. The stream is extremely large (flowrate of around 700-800 GPM). I am only looking to get the stream up to maybe 3-5 wt% ethanol. Right now I am thinking pervaporation with membranes. One problem is the recovery and efficiency as far as I can tell varies greatly from membrane type to membrane type, and often those composites are only offered from a specific company. If anybody has experience with this or has contact info Id appreciate it.





RE: Very Dilute Ethanol Recovery from Water
RE: Very Dilute Ethanol Recovery from Water
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RE: Very Dilute Ethanol Recovery from Water
RE: Very Dilute Ethanol Recovery from Water
RE: Very Dilute Ethanol Recovery from Water
Pervaporation will be so energy-intensive that there's no way it would pay. Same goes for more conventional methods like stripping etc. Carbon won't work- the molecule is small and it's miscible with water.
Even if you could recover part of the energy cost by reducing disposal or water treatment cost, your cause is hopeless. There's too little value in the product ethanol to justify processing such an enormous quantity of water.
RE: Very Dilute Ethanol Recovery from Water
where is this flow coming from? you might be a lot better off optimizing part of the process upstream of the point you're describing.