For process synthesis procedures intended for the design of fuel ethanol pro­duction processes, the selection of the technological scheme for ethanol separa­tion and dehydration has paramount importance. Thus, the utilization of salts as extractive agents (saline extractive distillation) has demonstrated certain energetic advantages compared to other dehydration schemes, according to some reports (Barba et al., 1985; Llano-Restrepo and Aguilar-Arias, 2003). Cited results indi­cate that energy costs of saline distillation were lower than in the case of azeo­tropic distillation (using benzene, pentane, or diethyl ether), extractive distillation (using ethylene glycol or gasoline), or solvent extraction, being almost the same as the costs of pervaporation. Pinto et al. (2000) used Aspen Plus® for simulation and optimization of the saline extractive distillation for several substances (NaCl, KCl, KI, and CaCl2). This configuration was compared to the simulated scheme of conventional extractive distillation with ethylene glycol and to data for azeotro­pic distillation. Obtained results showed considerably lower energy consumption for the process with salts. However, for this latter case, the recovery of salts was not simulated. Thus, if evaporation and recrystallization of salts is contemplated, energy requirements could significantly increase, taking into account the energy expenditures. In this way, the utilization of commercial simulators shows the viability for predicting the behavior of a given process configuration providing the appropriate thermodynamic models of studied systems, as illustrated in the following case study.