Thermally self-sufficient heat pump-assisted azeotropic dividing-wall column for biofuels recovery from isopropanol-butanol-ethanol fermentation

Isopropanol-butanol-ethanol (IBE) fermentation is a superior biofuel production technology as compared to acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) fermentation due to the better fuel properties of the obtained products. However, low product concentrations, thermodynamic constraints and the presence of microorganisms lead to complex downstream processing...