TECHNOLOGY FOCUS - ORGANIC CHEMISTRY - Preferred Process: The process optionally comprises introducing a second portion of the butanol phase into the first distillation column and/or condensing the vaporous overhead stream from the second distillation column to obtain a second condensate stream and introducing at least a portion of the second condensate stream into the first mixed condensate stream. The process further comprises: adding water and/or steam into the first distillation column; introducing at least a portion of the aqueous phase into a fermentation vessel; introducing the bottoms stream from the first distillation column into a fermentation vessel; separating the bottoms stream from the first distillation column to obtain a bottoms aqueous phase comprising water and bottoms organic phase comprising the extractant; introducing at least a portion of the bottoms organic phase into a fermentation vessel; optionally introducing at least a portion of the bottoms aqueous phase into a fermentation vessel; and purging at least a portion of the gas phase comprising a non-condensable gas from the process, where a non-condensable gas is present in the feed. Preferred Components: The feed comprises an organic phase obtained from an extractive fermentation. The non-condensable gas is carbon dioxide. The butanol concentration in the feed is 0.1-40 wt.% based on the weight of the feed, where the butanol is not a mixture of 1-butanol and isobutanol. The extractant comprises at least one solvent of 7-22C fatty alcohols, 7-22C fatty acids, esters of 7-22C fatty acids and/or 7-22C fatty aldehydes, preferably oleyl alcohol. EXAMPLE - Rich solvent feed (157.778 kg/hour) containing 11.44 wt.% of isobutanol was heated at 32.2-80.6 degrees C in a process heat exchanger and the resulting preheated solvent was fed to the solvent column. This feed point divided the solvent column into the rectifying and stripping sections. This rich solvent feed condition corresponds to 20 g/l aqueous phase titer in the fermentor was maintained during the extractive fermentation process. The separation was realized by a larger diameter solvent column, and higher solvent column re-boiler and condenser duties to give mass fraction isobutanol in bottom lean solvent with 92.6 wt.% of oleyl alcohol and 7.4 wt.% of water and water mass fraction in bottom product with 99.96 wt.% of isobutanol.