Sasol to build high-purity ethanol plant

Sasol announced that Sasol Chemical Industries (SCI) will invest R140 mm in a new plant to produce high-purity ethanol.
This investment will earn substantial foreign exchange for Sasol and South Africa, growing from R100 mm per year to R200 mm per year over the life of the project.
This decision follows the development of proven proprietary technology by Sasol Technology. Basic engineering commenced in July 1998 and the plant, which will form part of Sasol Solvents, will be completed in October 1999.
The new plant will be located in Secunda and will have an capacity of 85,000 tpy of ethanol with a minimum purity of 99.99 %.

Sasol Chemical Industries already produces about 35,000 tpy of high-purity ethanol at its Sasolburg plant, for select international markets as well as the South African market. Most of the high-purity ethanol from the Secunda plant will be exported world-wide. The expansion of Sasol's high-purity ethanol production provides an opportunity to place more ethanol into international chemical markets.
Sasol Technology has developed the proprietary know-how to produce high-purity ethanol through an extractive distillation process which has been used successfully at the Sasolburg high-purity ethanol plant.