A New Simulation Model for Design of Distillation Column in a Bio-ethanol/Water System: Effect of Reflux Ratio

Fuel ethanol research development deals with process design integration for improving production of ethanol. This paper investigates the effect of variable reflux ratio on the design of distillation column using developed JAVA based simulation software. This was done by varying reflux ratio as an input parameter and observed the effect it has on the number of trays that produced the column height. Varying reflux ratio arbitrarily from 3.094 to 9.301 produced column height ranging between 5.897 and 6.232 respectively. With the feed composition of ethanol-water mixture set at 45 percent, and the minimum reflux ratio of 3.4. The results showed that the number of trays decreases with increase in reflux ratio while the column height varies inversely with the reflux ratio.