This study presents the analysis of the exergy load distribution in a separation process by extractive distillation for ethanol dehydration. The methodology carried out is divided into three parts: the calculation of the flow exergy considering the physical and chemical exergies of the distillation process; the calculation of the primary and transformed exergy contributions considering the consumed exergy; and finally, the overall process efficiency, which shows the real percentage of energy being used in the process. The simulation of an extractive distillation separation system is carried out using Aspen Plus^®, from Aspen Tech Version 9. In general, heat transfer processes (heating or cooling) are the ones that generate the greatest exegetic destruction, which is why they must be the operations that must be optimized. As a result of our case study, the local exergy efficiency of the extractive distillation column is 13.80%, which is the operation with the greatest energy loss, and the overall exergy efficiency of the separation system is 30.67%. Then, in order to increase exergy efficiency, a sensitivity analysis is performed with the variation of the azeotrope feed, number of stages, reflux ratio, and solvent feed variation on ethanol purity to reach an overall efficiency of 33.53%. The purity of ethanol is classified as higher than that of the specified, 99.65%.

A conceptual design of coffee stem biomass gasification was developed using the Aspen Plus process simulator, which was analyzed based on energy criteria such as the lower heating value of the produced synthesis gas and cold gas efficiency. The results yielded a lower heating value of 5.07 kJ/MJ, with a cold gas efficiency of 77.45% and a yield of 2.75 kg gas/kg biomass, all operating under optimal conditions with studied parameters including an air-to-biomass ratio between 1.8 and 2.5, gasifying agent temperature of 260 °C, and biomass moisture content below 10%. A sensitivity analysis was conducted on the formation of the most important compounds for synthesis gas quality (H₂, CO, CO₂, H₂O, CH₄). This involved understanding the reactions occurring throughout the gasification reactor and evaluating process parameters such as feed moisture content, gasification section temperature, and the ratio between feed and gasifying agent flows to optimize the process with the aim of improving product quality and reducing residue formation. The simulation scheme was validated against experimental data, yielding results consistent with reality. This contributed valuable information towards process optimization for projects targeting the Colombian coffee sector, paving the way for future gasifier designs tailored to the quantity of raw material to be processed.

In this research, the modeling and simulation of a laboratory-scale pyrolytic reactor with tubular geometry loaded with palm kernel was carried out using the COMSOL Multiphysics® V5.6 software; For the modeling, the physicochemical properties from the palm shell found in different bibliographic sources were used, as well as the initial flow conditions and concentrations to estimate hydrodynamic, thermal and kinetic profiles present in the absorption of the biomass entered in the fixed bed, contemplating isothermal and non-isothermal conditions. The results indicate that the formation of tar is favored at a temperature of 723.15 to 773.15 K, with a reaction time of 10 to 12 min and the relationship of the geometry change with respect to the thermal and hydrodynamic profiles, these are in accordance with the references consulted and can be used as a starting point for future research to understand the phenomena presented within a pyrolysis reactor.

Se desarrolla un algoritmo que permite predecir el comportamiento de adsorción mediante la obtención de isotermas de adsorción de Langmuir a partir de datos experimentales de capacidad de adsorción vs. concentraciones en el equilibrio, los cuales serán ajustados por medio de una regresión lineal ejecutada mediante Matlab®, este algoritmo es aplicado para comparar la adsorción de ácido fórmico y acético sobre carbón activado y Amberlite IRA-67 definiendo las isotermas de adsorción de Langmuir. El carbón activado es un adsorbente industrial comúnmente utilizado, Amberlite IRA-67 es una resina poliacrílica débilmente básica con un grupo funcional amina terciaria. El resultado de esta comparación evidencia que el carbón activo es más eficaz que la resina Amberlite IRA-67 al momento de adsorber los ácidos carboxílicos estudiados.