Techno-economic and energetic assessment of an innovative pilot-scale thermosyphon-assisted falling film distillation unit for sanitizer-grade ethanol recovery

Rodrigo Battisti, Andrea Galeazzi, Kristiano Prifti, Flavio Manenti, Ricardo Antonio Francisco Machado and Cintia Marangoni

Applied Energy, 2021, vol. 297, issue C, No S0306261921006139

Abstract: The increasing demand for ethanol-based disinfectants due to the COVID-19 pandemic has driven the emergence of innovative strategies to avoid the risk of shortage and reduce production costs. Distillation is well-known as the major energy consumer and cost driver for ethanol recovery in conventional distilleries. Our research team has been developing a novel heat-intensified falling film distillation apparatus assisted by a two-phase closed thermosyphon, patented as Destubcal. Therefore, this study aims to provide a techno-economic and energetic assessment of the pilot-scale thermosyphon-assisted falling film distillation unit applied to recover sanitizer-grade ethanol with 70 vol% in alcohol. Performance analysis showed that under a feed flow rate of 14L/h, a feed temperature of 80 °C, and an evaporator temperature of 93 °C, the pilot-scale unit reaches the minimum specific thermal energy consumption with the maximum distillate ethanol recovery and energy efficiency (88.5%). The impact of the elements in the capital cost-share showed instrumentation and control (27.8%), and piping and auxiliary equipment (27.6%) as the predominant capital costs, while the cost for major process equipment represents only 6.2% which reveals a low-cost and easy-to-implement technology. The major operating cost-driver is the labor (51.3%) since the pilot-scale unit has a lower capacity than industrial plants. However, the Destubcal unit spends on utility costs about 31.6$/m3feed, which represents a total saving of 43.8% compared to conventional distilleries. Furthermore, the Destubcal unit saves about 1.78 MJ/kg (46.4%), with 59.2% less column height than a conventional column, being considered techno-economically feasible for sanitizer-grade ethanol recovery.

Keywords: Falling film distillation; Two-phase closed thermosyphon; Energy-intensified apparatus; Techno-economic analysis; Ethanol recovery; Sanitizer-grade ethanol (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261921006139
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:appene:v:297:y:2021:i:c:s0306261921006139

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 405891/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2021.117185

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Energy is currently edited by J. Yan

More articles in Applied Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().