Recovery Versus Incineration

DANILO ALEXANDER FIGUEROA PAREDES; JOSÉ ESPINOSA; ANTONIO AMELIO

Handbook of Solvents, Third Edition

ChemTec Publishing

Lugar: Toronto ; Año: 2019; p. 755 - 786

In this chapter, the economic and environmental performance of the alternatives distillation/incineration and distillation/pervaporation for the treatment of the azeotropic mixture isopropyl alcohol-water, whose separation by distillation is characterized by an energy demand controlled by tangent pinch points, are summarized. The incineration alternative, either in a conventional waste solvent incineration plant or in a cement kiln, resorts to a pre-concentration step by distillation. The recovery alternative, on the other hand, considers a hybrid process consisting of a distillation column followed by a pervaporation unit. Quasi-optimal designs taking into account both operating and investment costs for each technological alternative were obtained resorting to conceptual models of the units involved. Optimal values for the operation variables obtained at the conceptual design level were used as input data of the life cycle analysis to consider all impacts on humans and the environment during the entire life cycle of the solvent.