As a new engineer hired by a company, you are asked evaluate an existing separation process for ethyl alcohol (ethanol) and water. In the current distillation process an ethanol-water mixture at ambient pressure the products are a distillate of near-azeotropic composition (89.4 mol% ethanol) and a bottoms of nearly pure water. Based on differences in the physical properties of ethanol and water, explain how the following operations may be able to recover pure ethanol from the distillate:
a. Extractive distillation.
b. Azeotropic distillation.
c. Liquid-liq- uid extraction.
d. Crystallization.
e. Pervaporation.
f. Adsorption.