BACKGROUND Butanol produced from fermentation has attracted the interest of research groups because its physicochemical properties show several enhancements over bioethanol. Recent studies have proposed alternative methods to separate and purify biobutanol from a fermentation broth. These alternatives offer energy and economic savings; in addition, a reduction in environmental impact is observed. However few studies have analyzed the control properties of the process which involves separation of an acetone–butanol–ethanol (ABE) mixture. RESULTS A controllability analysis using the singular value decomposition technique and a closed-loop dynamic analysis was performed on several hybrid distillation processes including conventional, thermally coupled, thermodynamically equivalent and intensified designs. The results indicated that under the closed-loop control policy, an intensified design which is integrated for only two distillation columns instead of three distillation columns, showed good dynamic properties. In addition, thermally coupled sequence A showed better control properties under open-loop analysis. CONCLUSIONS Using both SVD analysis and closed-loop tests the dynamics properties were obtained for several hybrid processes to separate an effluent produced by fermentation. It was possible to control all schemes under both methodologies and it was clear that when the base case became more complex with thermal coupling, section movement or elimination of a column section improved the control properties. © 2016 Society of Chemical Industry