This paper discusses the conceptual process design for the integrated production of bio-based acetic acid, glycolaldehyde, and acetol from forest residue- and pine-derived pyrolysisoils. Aspen Plus®and Aspen Process Economic Analyzer were used for process simulationand estimating the equipment cost, respectively. The process was designed at a capacity200 kt pyrolysis oil per year, operating 8000 h annually, and involving extraction, distillation,and evaporation. It can isolate more than 99% of the glycolaldehyde and acetic acid andabout two-thirds of the acetol present in the oils. In comparison with the forest residue-based process (21 MD ), the pine-based process requires a higher capital investment of 23MD and a slightly higher production cost of 49 MD /a versus 48 MD /a, but can provide ahigher revenue of 57 MD /a instead of 44 MD /a because pine-derived pyrolysis oil containsmore acetic acid, glycolaldehyde, and acetol, which also makes it less sensitive to marketprice. Pine-derived pyrolysis oil is a preferable feedstock over forest residue-derived pyrolysisoil for an integrated chemical recovery process, whereas forest residue-derived pyrolysis oilgenerates no profit at an annual capacity of 50¿600 kt oil. The economic feasibility of thedesigned process is highly dependent on the glycolaldehyde content of the pyrolysis oil.@en

tThe relatively high viscosities of ionic liquids could reduce the mass transfer efficiency of the extractivedistillation process. The rate-based model was adopted to analyze this phenomenon since it predicted theperformance of an extractive distillation pilot plant using ionic liquids as solvent. For the water¿ethanolseparation, three ionic liquids: 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride, 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazoliumacetate and 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium dicyanamide and the organic solvent ethylene glycol wereused for the analysis. Simulations were conducted for sieve trays and Mellapak®250Y. The results indi-cate that relatively high viscosities affect the mass transfer efficiency. However, the improvements inrelative volatilities obtained from the ionic liquids help to overcome this effect. However, with high sol-vent viscosities (>65 mPa s at T = 353.15 K) it was not possible to overcome the reductions. Additionally, athigher distillate rates high relative volatilities yielded negative effects on mass transfer efficiency becauseof a decrease in vapor velocity.@en

Separation of the close-boiling mixture: toluene ¿ methylcyclohexane (MCH) has been carried out by extractive distillation (ED) using the ionic liquid [HMIM][TCB]. High solvent-to-feed ratios are needed to maintain one liquid phase and increased liquid phase viscosities are expected compared to the reference solvent NMP. Experiments in an extractive distillation pilot plant were carried out at a solvent-to-feed mass ratio of 5 to evaluate the effect of solvent selectivity and viscosity on the separation performance and mass transfer efficiency. The results confirm that at the used operating conditions one liquid phase was maintained and that with [HMIM][TCB] a MCH purity >99.7% could be achieved. The liquid phase viscosities in the ED column when using [HMIM][TCB] appeared four times higher than with NMP. As a result the mass transfer efficiency decreased, which was reflected in a doubling of the HETP (height equivalent to a theoretical plate) compared to NMP@en