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Sustainability 2012, 4, 92-105; doi:10.3390/su4010092 OPEN ACCESS sustainability ISSN 2071-1050 /journal/sustainability Article A Sustainable Ethanol Distillation System Yuelei Yang *, Kevin Boots and Dan Zhang Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Oshawa, ON L1H 7K4, Canada; E-Mails: kevin.j.boots@ (K.B.); dan.zhang@uoit.ca (D.Z.) * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail: yueleiyang@; Tel.: +1-905-721-8668 ext. 5727; Fax: +1-905-721-3370. Received: 2 November 2011; in revised form: 19 December 2011 / Accepted: 20 December 2011 / Published: 4 January 2012 Abstract: The discarded fruit and vegetable waste from the consumer and retailer sectors provide a reliable source for ethanol production. In this paper, an ethanol distillation system has been developed to remove the water contents from the original wash that contains only around 15% of the ethanol. The system has an ethanol production capacity of over 100,000 liters per day. It includes an ethanol condenser, a wash pre-heater, a main exhaust heat exchanger as well as a fractionating column. One unique characteristic of this system is that it utilizes the waste heat rejected from a power plant to vaporize the ethanol, thus it saves a significant amount of energy and at the same time reduces the pollution to the environment. Keywords: ethanol; heat exchanger; distillation; waste heat recovery