Reactive distillation and membrane assisted reactive distillation have been considered as possible alternatives to extractive distillation for the concentration of ethanol from diluted streams. Aquaporin-based biomimetic forward osmosis membranes have been tested for ethanol tolerance and ethanol rejection. The experimental results were used to construct the process simulations developed in Aspen Plus. Different alternatives were proposed where the pre-concentration step was performed by membrane stand alone or a combination of membrane and ordinary distillation. In all the configurations reactive distillation using ethylene oxide was considered to reach the ethanol final concentration of 99.9 wt%. Ethanol recovery, energy consumed per kg of ethanol produced, total annual cost and economic analysis were used to compare the alternatives. It was obtained that ordinary distillation coupled with reactive distillation is at the moment the only alternative competing with extractive distillation. However, the sequence of membranes, ordinary distillation and reactive distillation has clear potentials to compete with the stand-alone distillation processes once the solutions for draw recovery and minimization of ethanol lost will be available.

反应性蒸馏和膜辅助反应性蒸馏被认为是萃取蒸馏的一种可能的替代方法，用于从稀释流中浓缩乙醇。基于水通道蛋白的仿生正渗透膜已经过乙醇耐受性和乙醇排斥测试。实验结果用于构建在Aspen Plus中开发的过程模拟。提出了不同的替代方案，其中预浓缩步骤通过单独的膜或膜与常规蒸馏的组合进行。在所有配置中，认为使用环氧乙烷的反应蒸馏达到乙醇的最终浓度为99.9 wt％。使用乙醇回收率，每千克生产的乙醇消耗的能源，年度总成本和经济分析来比较替代方案。已经发现，普通蒸馏与反应性蒸馏相结合是目前与萃取蒸馏竞争的唯一选择。但是，一旦可获得用于馏分回收和乙醇损失最小的解决方案，膜，普通蒸馏和反应蒸馏的顺序具有明显的潜力可与独立的蒸馏工艺竞争。