RCM (RCMT) USPTO patents

A system and method for producing substantially anhydrous ethanol, methanol or other volatile chemicals includes: (a) a first distillation stripping column or column set with overhead vapors compressed using mechanical vapor recompression to strip off a weak ethanol overheads; (b) a second distillation rectifying column having a higher operating temperature than the stripping column; (c) a dehydration means in fluid communication with the rectifying column; (d) reboiler for the stripping column which partially condenses the vapor from the mechanical vapor recompression, (e) a trim condenser which completes the condensing of the vapor/liquid mix of the reboiler, (f) a heat recovery circuit which condenses the rectifying column overheads and molecular sieve dry ethanol condenser and (g) a heat exchange to transfer the recovered heat of (f) to the first distillation stripping column reboiler feed.