Process Intensification of Divided Wall Column I

Distillation is the primary separation process in the refining and chemical processing industries and is often the largest energy-consuming process in operating plants. Process Intensification (PI) is the principle of achieving process objectives using more compact and less energy-intensive processes and equipment. Thermally coupled dividing wall columns (DWC) have proven to be an effective PI strategy for distillation, with over 200 DWC units in industrial use. For the separation of three components at similar pressures, conventional distillation would use two separate columns. In contrast DWC can achieve the same separation with lower capital and energy costs by achieving the separation in one column. In principle, with additional dividing walls, DWC can be extended to separating 4 or more components in a single column. This session will be discussing recent trends in applications that address divided wall columns for multicomponent separation, including DWC optimization and design, operation and controls, and DWC configuration and construction techniques.