WE owe to Mr. Mariller some very remarkable studies on the industrial production of absolute alcohol. We have already noted, in our first volume (page 53), the industrial applications implemented by Mr. Mariller of the method of distillation of azeotropic mixtures discovered by Young in 1902. From 1920 on, Messrs Mariller and Coutant have used benzene and gasoline, which they injected into rectifiers fed with alcohol at 95 degrees, to directly produce the mixture of gasoline and absolute alcohol constituting the national standard motor fuel. At the base, a hydrocarbon/absolute alcohol mixture was extracted which, diluted with gasoline, provided the fuel, and at the head a stream which, when decanted, gave a dehydrated upper layer to be returned for treatment and a water-bearing lower layer to be distilled for recovery of the alcohol that it contained. If production of absolute alcohol was desired, then one need only fractionate it from its mixture with the hydrocarbon.
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