NOVELTY - Extractive distillation (ED) process involves introducing aqueous feedstock (1) comprising ethanol and water into middle portion of extractive distillation column (EDC) (201); introducing high-boiling water selective, salt-free solvent into upper portion to produce liquid bottoms stream and to produce vaporous overhead stream, where EDC is operated with no liquid reflux at the top of EDC; and feeding liquid bottoms stream of EDC into solvent recovery column (SRC) (202) to remove ethanol from it.    USE - As an extractive distillation (ED) process for dehydrating an aqueous feedstock containing ethanol and water (claimed) particularly for recovering anhydrous ethanol, which is suitable for gasoline blending.    ADVANTAGE - The process is an energy-efficient extractive distillation process for producing anhydrous ethanol from aqueous/ethanol feeds containing any range of ethanol by employing an extractive distillation column (EDC) that operates under no or greatly reduced liquid reflux conditions. By using a high-boiling extractive distillation solvent, no solvent, is entrained by the vapor phase to the EDC overhead stream, even under no liquid reflux conditions. The energy requirement and severity of the EDC is further improved by limiting ethanol recovery in the EDC. In this partial ethanol recovery design, ethanol which remains in the aqueous stream from the EDC is recovered in a post-distillation column or the aqueous stream is recycled to a front-end pre-distillation column where the ethanol is readily recovered since the vapor-liquid equilibrium (VLE) curve for ethanol/water is extremely favorable for distillation. The method enables to recover 99.5+ wt.% of ethanol from an aqueous ethanol feedstock. The purified ethanol product is food-grade ethanol.    DETAILED DESCRIPTION - An improved extractive distillation (ED) process involves: (a) introducing an aqueous feedstock (1) comprising ethanol and water into a middle portion of an extractive distillation column (EDC) (201); (b) introducing a high-boiling water selective, salt-free solvent into an upper portion of the EDC to contact the aqueous feedstock under extractive distillation conditions to produce a liquid bottoms stream that comprises water and high-boiling water selective solvent and to produce a vaporous overhead stream that comprises greater than 99.5 wt.% ethanol, where the EDC is operated with no liquid reflux at the top of the EDC; (c) optionally withdrawing at least a portion of the vaporous overhead from the EDC as a purified ethanol product; (d) feeding at least a portion of the liquid bottoms stream of the EDC into a solvent recovery column (SRC) (202) to remove ethanol from it and to yield a bottoms stream that comprises lean high-boiling ethanol selective solvent and an overhead stream, where at least a portion of the overhead is withdrawn as a purified ethanol product with higher than 99.5 wt.% purity; and (e) recycling at least a portion of the lean high-boiling water selective solvent stream into the upper portion of the EDC.    DESCRIPTION OF DRAWING(S) - The figure shows a low-energy extractive distillation process for the dehydration of aqueous ethanol.    Aqueous feedstock (1)    Extractive distillation column (201)    Solvent recovery column (202)    Condenser (205)    Pump (209)