The EthylChem facility, located inside Petrotrin’s Refinery at Pointe-a-Pierre Trinidad, boasts a 100,000,000 gallon per year ethanol dehydration capability, two ethanol storage tanks each with a capacity of 230,000 barrels and several thousand metres of pipelines connecting the storage tanks with Petrotrin’s Berth 3.

EthylChem receives hydrous ethanol, typically from Brazil, containing approximately 95% ethanol and 5% water, via ocean-going ships.  The hydrous ethanol is pumped from the ships into one of the storage tanks, from which the ethanol is pumped into the dehydration unit.  The unit itself utilizes molecular sieve technology to remove water from hydrous ethanol.  The resulting product, anhydrous ethanol, which contains approximately 99.5% (minimum) ethanol and 0.5% (maximum) water, is then pumped into the other storage tank, from which it can then be loaded onto a ship for delivery outside Trinidad (typically the United States).

The process of removing water from ethanol is known as “pressure swing adsorption.”  This refers to the fact that the dehydrator uses relatively high pressure (although low by typical petrochemical operations) when water is being removed from the feed vapor stream and relatively low pressure when the molecular sieve desiccant is being regenerated (having the water removed from the desiccant).  Four beds of desiccant are used in the EthylChem facility to provide continuous operation.  While two beds are on-line drying the feed vapor, the other two beds are being regenerated.