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US 7,399,892 B2Granted
Process for dewatering ethanol
AssigneeOxeno Olefinchemie GmbH
InventorsArmin Rix, Frank Höper, Jochen Praefke, Wilfried Büschken
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A process for preparing low-water ethanol from at least two streams of relatively water-rich ethanol that have a different water content by dewatering at membranes. The low-water ethanol can be used to prepare ethyl tert-butyl ether (ETBE).
Claims17
A process for preparing relatively low-water ethanol from at least two streams of relatively water-rich ethanol that have a different water content, the process comprising
- introducing separately the ethanol streams with different water contents into different membrane units in which the ethanol streams are each separated into relatively low-water ethanol as the retentate and relatively water-rich permeate, and
- combining the retentate stream from at least one membrane unit for separating an ethanol stream with a relatively high water content with the feed stream and/or the retentate stream of at least one other membrane unit for separating an ethanol stream, wherein only streams that have a difference in ethanol concentration of not more than 1% by mass absolute are combined.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.