New ideas for energy savings – Creative approaches to the treatment of fusel oils resulting from methanol production

Thread Content

Fusel oils are generated during the methanol production process, primarily originating from the light components at the top of the pre-distillation column and the components extracted from the side streams of the atmospheric distillation column. The market for fusel oil is unstable; sales are good at times and poor at other times. When fusel oil cannot be sold, it is used for wastewater treatment. Also, when the alcohol content is low, it can only be treated as wastewater. When treating fusel oil as wastewater, the costs involved include: 1) the expense of transporting the fusel oil to a wastewater treatment facility, plus the cost of wastewater treatment itself; 2) transportation costs; 3) energy waste. Therefore, companies opt to vaporize the fusel oil using pipelines and use it to produce water-coal slurry. Energy-saving analysis: 1. Combustion of combustible components produces useful gases, enabling energy recovery; 2. Water treatment costs are eliminated; 3. Transportation costs are eliminated; 4. Water resources are not required