Recovery of ethanol from scrubber-water by district heat-driven membrane distillation: Industrial-scale technoeconomic study

Daniel Woldemariam, Alaa Kullab, Ershad Ullah Khan and Andrew Martin

Renewable Energy, 2018, vol. 128, issue PB, 484-494

Abstract: Membrane distillation (MD) integrated with a district heating network (DHN) to supply the heat demand has been investigated in a bioethanol production plant (BP). The specific application considered here is ethanol recovery from fermentation off-gas (CO2) scrubber water, where the main objective of this study was to develop an air gap MD system that is driven by heat from DHN, thereby offloading the steam-driven distillation column. Experiments conducted on an MD laboratory facility combined with data from the bioethanol industry were used to assess the technological and economic feasibility of this integrated MD-DHN-BP system. Comparisons were also made between the distillation column and MD units regarding heat demand and economic savings. Results of the study showed that MD could be a competitive technology for ethanol recovery given that low-grade heat such as from district heating network or waste heat is accessible.

Keywords: Membrane distillation; District heating; Bioethanol; Energy demand; Technoeconomy; CO2 scrubber; Exergy; Thermal efficiency (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:128:y:2018:i:pb:p:484-494

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2017.06.009

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