Solvent evaluation for ecogasoline production via two step process

The potential of four different solvents, i.e., n-octane, diesel, oleic acid, and nonanoic acid, as separation agents for dilute mixtures of ethanol in water to produce ethanol fuel mixtures, i.e., E10 and E85, was tested with the use of commercial simulation software. The UNIFAC thermodynamic model reproduced the reference experimental data for the ethanol-water-octane and ethanol-water-diesel systems. The UNIQUAC thermodynamic model, filled with UNIFAC and slightly adjusted to match the experimental data was able to reproduce the ethanol-water-nonanoic acid reference experimental data. This model was also used for the ethanol-water-oleic acid system, but in this case due to the nature of the oleic acid mixture, the results were not comparable because of differing compositions. Processes for obtaining ethanol fuel mixtures by combining an extraction stage followed by a distillation stage were simulated whereby the modeled schemes were unable to produce E85 fuel under specifications with octane, diesel, nonanoic acid, or oleic acid. This is an abstract of a paper presented at the AIChE Spring National Meeting and 5th Global Congress on Process Safety (Tampa, FL 4/26-30/2009).