The aim of this work is to simulate and to optimize a saline extractive dis
tillation process for purification of ethanol from the ethanol-water binary
system. All the work was developed using ASPEN PLUS simulator, version 10.
1-0, and the NRTL thermodynamic model developed for calculating activity co
efficients of electrolytic systems, having as goal to get the anhydride eth
anol (99.7 wt.%). In the development of this study, four saline agents were
tested (NaCl, KCl, KI, CaCl2). The complete process and a methodology to o
ptimize it were established in the simulator in such a way all variables we
re optimized. It was verified that using only the saline extractive distill
ation process, it is possible to purify the ethanol from the fermentation b
roth composition obtaining a product with high purity. Finally, a comparati
ve study using electrolyte distillation process and the integrated distilla
tion process (simple and extractive distillation) was carried out. (C) 2000
Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.