SIMULATION OF A THERMALLY-COUPLED COLUMN FOR SEPARATION OF ALCOHOLS

The design of an energy saving distillation plant has been carried out. The procedure included all the design of the conventional distillation plant with a deviation from a single column to three-thermally coupled distillation columns. The coupled column was designed by configuring a linkage of three columns together with the overhead and bottoms stream without heat exchangers. The first column was made the pre-fractionator which evaporates the lightest component; the second column separates both the lightest and middle components, while a last column was connected in the bottom where both the middle and the bottom components were separated. The feed included a 100kgmol/hr and the liquid fraction was one. The relative volatilities of each distillation are 7.5, 5.0, 2.1 and 1.9 for a feed composition of Methanol, Ethanol, n-propanol and i-propanol respectively. Each component has a feed composition of 25%. The recoveries were 66%, 34%, 50% and 50% respectively. Conceivable mixes of parallel blends were made and the base energy was calculated for each. The underwood technique was utilized to get least reflux proportion.