Extractive Distillation

Selection of A Solvent

The choice of solvent determines which of the two components in the original feed is removed predominantly in the distillation. For example, if the fresh feed
to the distillation is a mixture of 83 mole% ethanol and 17 mole% water, and ethylene glycol (boiling point 197.35 oC) is the solvent; the volatility of ethanol is
increased more than that of water. Therefore, ethanol is removed as the distillate from the extractive distillation column, and water is separated in the solvent
recovery column. On the other hand, if a high-boiling hydrocarbon such as iso-octane (boiling point 99.3 oC, vs. n-octane with boiling point 125.6 oC) is used
as solvent, the volatility of water is enhanced relative to that of ethanol, and water now becomes the distillate in the extractive distillation column.

The number of possible solvents available for separation by extractive distillation is usually much larger than for an azeotropic distillation because of less severe
volatility restrictions. A general approach is to chose a compound that is more similar to the higher-boiling component in the original feed, and then go up the
homologous series for that compound until a homolog is found that boils high enough to make the formation of azeotrope impossible.

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