scholarly journals Preliminary Studies on the Use of Reactive Distillation in the Production of Beverage Spirits

Beverages ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob Rochte ◽  
Kris Berglund

Distilled alcoholic beverages have been produced through fermentation and distillation for centuries but have not purposefully involved a chemical reaction to produce a flavoring. Introducing a microorganism to produce butyric acid along with the typical yeast ethanol fermentation sets up a reactive distillation system to flavor a spirit with ethyl butyrate and butyric acid. The ternary interactions of water, ethanol, and butyric acid allow all three to vaporize in the stripping distillation, thus they are concentrated in the low wines and give a large excess of ethanol compared to butyric acid for better reaction completion. The stripping distillation has also been modeled on Aspen Plus® V9 software (by Aspen Technology, Inc. Bedford, MA, USA) and coincides well with a test stripping distillation at the bench scale. Amberlyst® 15 wet catalyst was added to a subsequent distillation, resulting in the production of the desired ethyl butyrate in the distillate, measured by gas chromatography. Primary sensory evaluation has determined that this process has a profound effect on the smell of the spirit with the main flavor being similar to fruity bubble gum. The current results will provide a pathway for creating spirits with a desired flavor on demand without acquiring a heavy capital cost if a beverage distillation column is already purchased.

Processes ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guanghui Chen ◽  
Fushuang Jin ◽  
Xiaokai Guo ◽  
Shuguang Xiang ◽  
Shaohui Tao

The traditional two-column reactive distillation (RD) process is used for the production of butyric anhydride, which is synthesized with butyric acid and acetic anhydride via a reversible reaction. In this work, a novel process with a single RD column (SRDC) is designed for the production of butyric anhydride, where the second distillation column for separating excess reactant is removed based on the boiling point profile of the reaction system. Two applications of the proposed SRDC process, namely SRDC with excess butyric acid or acetic anhydride circulating internally, are economically optimized, and the results show that both SRDC processes have a lower total annual cost (TAC) than the traditional two-column process. Furthermore, from the perspective of TAC, the application with an excess feed of butyric acid is better than the application with excess acetic anhydride. The developed technique may also be applied to retrofit other traditional two-column RD processes, where the overhead and bottom products are the lightest and heaviest components of the reaction system, respectively, and no azeotrope is involved in the RD column.


2019 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-22
Author(s):  
Olga Valerica Taga (Sapunaru) ◽  
Claudia Irina Koncsag ◽  
Ana Maria Sivriu ◽  
Gheorghita Jinescu

Transesterification is a classical organic synthesis reaction with many uses in both laboratory and industrial applications. In this reaction, one ester is converted to another by the radical alkoxy exchange. In some cases, the transesterification process is more advantageous when used in the manufacturing of esters than their synthesis by direct esterification of the carboxylic acids with alcohols. Based on literature studies, a transesterification study coupled with the reactive distillation (RD) was performed in order to obtain isopropyl lactate (IPL) by methyl lactate (ML) with isopropanol (IPA). The independent variables studied were: the alcohol / methyl lactate molar ratio (R), the number of the theoretical stages in the fractionation zone (NTS) and the reactive distillation column reflux ratio (RR). The experimental matrix was set for a 23 factorial experiment with three variables at two levels: R = 2 and 4; NTS = 1.7, respectively 2.4 and RR = 2 and 7. A linear mathematical model was proposed to correlate the methyl lactate conversion with all three variables. The model is reliable as the statistical analysis proved.


2006 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 301-308 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bolun YANG ◽  
Jiang WU ◽  
Guosheng ZHAO ◽  
Huajun WANG ◽  
Shiqing LU

2011 ◽  
Vol 89 (4) ◽  
pp. 480-490 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fernando Israel Gómez-Castro ◽  
Vicente Rico-Ramírez ◽  
Juan Gabriel Segovia-Hernández ◽  
Salvador Hernández-Castro

2004 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 791-796
Author(s):  
Budi H. Bisowarno ◽  
Yu-Chu Tian ◽  
Moses O. Tadé

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