Process description in brief

The proposed plant for Anhydrous Ethanol (Absolute alcohol) is based on azeotropic distillation technology. The process removes the water from Rectified/ Denatured spirit with the help of entrainer (catalyst), where-in the entrainer only facilitates the removal of all the water from spirit without itself forming part of the final product. Following is the brief list of various equipments responsible for main process and a overview of the process taking place in them. 1) The main distillation column: a) Diameter :- 1200 mm. b) No. of trays :- 50. c) Process: Rectified/ Denatured spirit is introduced into this column from the top section of this column at temperature of about 65 C and pressure of 0.5 kg/cm2 above atmosphere. In the top section of the column the spirit is mixed with the entrainer. Then through the process of distillation the final product, i.e. Anhydrous ethanol, is extracted from the bottom of the same column, which is maintained at same pressure and temperature of 80 C. A reflux, mixture of alcohol, entrainer and water is taken out from the top of the column and taken to the decanter. 2) Decanter: a) Diameter :- 800 mm. b) Length :- 1200 mm. c) Process: The mixture of alcohol, entrainer and water which is collected from the reflux of the main column is allowed to settle for some time in decanter. In decanter there is separation of the contained mass into two layers. One entrainer rich layer and the other water rich layer. The entrainer rich layer is fed back to Main distillation column and the water rich layer is taken to deentrainer column. 3) De-entrainer column: a) Diameter :- 625 mm. b) No. of trays :- 18. c) Process: The water rich mixture coming out of decanter is fed into this column in the top section at a temperature of about 60 C and 0.5 kg/cm2 pressure above atmosphere. The bottom of the column is maintained at 78 C and same pressure. The extract from the bottom of this column is fed into the middle tray of Alcohol recovery column. An extract taken from the top of this column is fed back partially into the top section of the main distillation column. The remaining part of the extract is re-fed into the top section of this column. 4) Alcohol recovery column: a) Diameter :- 625 mm. b) No. of trays :- 50. c) Process: The extract from the bottom of De-entrainer column is fed into the middle section of this column which is also maintained at 0.5 kg/cm2 pressure above atmosphere. The temperature at top is

about 80 C. The bottom temperature is maintained at around 101 C. The extract from the top of this column is partially fed back to the main column at its top and part of the extract is re-fed into top of this column. Pure water is extracted from the bottom of this column which is removed from the process and can be used for gardening. Apart from these equipments there are a few heat exchangers of various HTAs (Heat transfer Area) as required by the chemical engineering of the process that are required to transfer the heat between steam and the alcoholic mixture. These are placed at appropriate places as required by the chemical engineering of the process.