Distillation is one of the most used separation techniques, despite its high heat demand and low thermodynamic efficiency. Although new distillation schemes have been developed for ethanol-water separation, most of them prescribe expensive sub-atmospheric columns. On the other hand, heat-integrated distillation columns allow significant steam savings since thermally integrated condenser/reboiler of different columns share the same heat duty. In this work, three innovative distillation schemes for large-scale sugarcane-ethanol biorefineries are analyzed aiming at less energy-intense processes, higher thermodynamic efficiencies and steam savings. Ethanol production, power production through bagasse-fired cogeneration, thermodynamic efficiency, heat demand, water usage, steam demand, carbon dioxide intake, and potential of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage are assessed for technical and thermodynamic comparisons of distillations schemes. Results of carbon emissions go beyond the biorefinery boundaries and include sugarcane supply-chain emissions. It is shown that heat-integrated distillation schemes promote huge steam savings compared to conventional ethanol distillation. Distillation Scheme No.2 – with five heat-integrated columns – showed highest steam savings of 63% relative to conventional distillation, while distillation Scheme No.3, prescribing an innovative Petlyuk column for bioethanol distillation, attained the highest thermodynamic efficiency (11.1%) outperforming distillation Schemes No.1 and No.2 (7.65% and 7.03%, respectively). Sankey diagrams express results of carbon dioxide equivalent flows, lost bioenergy with carbon capture and storage potential, water flow and equivalent power flows via the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

蒸馏是最常用的分离技术之一，尽管它具有很高的热量需求和较低的热力学效率。尽管已经开发出用于乙醇-水分离的新蒸馏方案，但是大多数方案规定了昂贵的低于大气压的塔。另一方面，热集成蒸馏塔可节省大量蒸汽，因为不同塔的热集成冷凝器/再沸器具有相同的热负荷。在这项工作中，针对大型甘蔗乙醇生物精炼厂的三种创新蒸馏方案进行了分析，旨在减少能源密集型过程，提高热力学效率和节省蒸汽。乙醇生产，甘蔗渣热电联产发电，热力学效率，热量需求，用水，蒸汽需求，二氧化碳摄入量，对蒸馏方案的技术和热力学比较，评估了具有碳捕集和封存的生物能源的潜力以及潜力。碳排放的结果超出了生物精炼厂的范围，包括甘蔗供应链的排放。结果表明，与常规乙醇蒸馏相比，热集成蒸馏方案可节省大量蒸汽。带有5个热集成塔的2号蒸馏方案显示出最高的蒸汽节省量相对于传统蒸馏而言，有63％的蒸馏方案，而采用创新的Petlyuk色谱柱进行生物乙醇蒸馏的第3号蒸馏方案却获得了最高的热力学效率（11.1％），优于第1和第2种蒸馏方案（分别为7.65％和7.03％）。Sankey图表通过热力学第二定律表达了二氧化碳当量流量，具有碳捕获和储存潜力的生物能损失，水流量和等效功率流量的结果。