## 1 Introduction  
The European Union aims to gradually increase the role of advanced fuels in transport to 3.5% by 2030. Thus, the green and economical production of C\({}_{2}\) and C\({}_{3}\) bio-alcohols will play a significant role in the circular economy [1]. Unfortunately, bio-alcohols exist in diluted aqueous solutions during their production, which implies a dehydration process. More than that, ethanol, propanol, and isopropanol form minimum boiling azeotropes with water. Various methods in the industry can be used to separate an azeotropic mixture. Thus, the isopropanol (IPA)-water mixture forms a minimum boiling azeotrope at 87.8 wt% at 80.4 \({}^{\circ}\)C and under atmospheric pressure. Therefore, it is not easy to separate the mixture by conventional distillation [2]. To overcome the separation problem, several techniques, such as extractive distillation [3, 4], azeotropic distillation [5], pressure swing distillation [6, 7], pervaporation [8, 9, 10] and a hybrid process with the membrane and distillation units [11], are employed. Extractive distillation (ED) can be used to separate the components of an azeotropic mixture by adding an extractive agent that modifies the mixture's relative volatility [12]. The entrainer can cause the relative volatility modification of the mixture by acting on the activity coefficients of the two components in the same direction: either by increasing both coefficients (and, in this case, the increase in the activity coefficient of the most volatile component is higher than the activity coefficient of the less volatile component) or by decreasing the activity coefficients of the two components (and, in this case, the activity coefficient of the less volatile component decreases more than the activity coefficient of the more volatile component). The experimental studies conducted in the past by researchers demonstrated that in general, the solvent is acting on the activity's coefficients in the same direction, even though it would be an ideal situation to increase the activity coefficient of the more volatile component and, at the same time, to decrease the activity coefficient of the less volatile component. Therefore, the solvent selection is crucial since it can determine the feasibility of the desired separation by ED. Specifically concerning the IPA-water system, the literature reported two solvents as the best candidates for extractive distillation: ethylene glycol (EG) and dimethyl-sulfoxide (DMSO) [1]. The optimal design and overall control strategy of the IPA dehydration process via extractive distillation have been investigated by [PERSON] and [PERSON] [13]. The optimal design flowsheet has been compared directly to their previous study via heterogeneous azeotropic distillation. The reported total annual cost (TAC) confirmed the sustainable extractive distillation process with DMSO. Furthermore, the optimal design flowsheet has two main drawbacks: first, the extractive distillation column should be very high, which would lead to stability problems in the construction, and second, both the extractive distillation column and regeneration column need to be operated at high temperatures. The latter disadvantage determines the need for high-pressure steam as a utility at the two reboilers. [PERSON] and co-authors [14] conducted a study to demonstrate the feasibility of EG as an extractive agent for the IPA-water separation via the extractive distillation process. The temperature, pressure, and concentration profiles were studied through the Aspen Plus version 8.8 simulation software, and the results revealed the very high purity of the IPA product stream. Under the given operating conditions, the simulation results indicate the 99.974 mol.% purity of the IPA at the top of the ED column. Therefore, the sensitivity analysis results reveal the effect of the molar reflux ratio, feed temperature, and feed flow rate on the IPA purity. Other researchers considered glycerol a \"green\" extractive agent candidate for the isopropyl alcohol-water separation.