Simulation and Optimization of Moroccan Industrial Plant for Bioethanol Production

Abstract

Distillation is one of the most energy consumption methods in chemical process industries. This high consumption of energy is the major disadvantage in a typical bioethanol distillation process. Consequently, the optimization and design of new configurations are part of challenges faced by process engineering. This work aimed to investigate the distillation process of a Moroccan distillery for ethanol production in order to optimize the operating energy and cost. The modeling and simulation of industrial process coupled the response surface methodology based on a central composite design have been used to optimize some operating conditions of each separation columns of the process. Working under optimal values of the operating conditions, the results showed that the total operating energy and cost of the process have been reduced about 15.17 % and 16.63 %, respectively.