Economic, environmental, energy, exergy (4E) analysis and simulated annealing algorithm optimization of dividing-wall column-intensified heterogeneous azeotropic pressure-swing distillation process

Abstract

This work presents an approach for the recovery of high purity cyclohexane (CYCLO) and tertiary butyl alcohol (TBA) from wastewater. After thermodynamic analysis, a heterogeneous azeotrope-pressure swing distillation process (HAPSD) with a decanter is proposed. The heterogenous azeotrope distillation with a high-pressure column and a dividing-wall column process (HADWC) is also being developed to propose a green and sustainable process. The novel processes are optimized using simulated annealing algorithm (SAA). Those processes are optimized by simulated annealing algorithm by linking Aspen Plus and MATLAB via taking the total annual cost (TAC) as objective function. Three energy-efficient HADWC processes are proposed based on the process intensification approach of heat pump and heat integration technologies. All processes are evaluated for multi-criteria performance including economy, energy consumption, gas emissions and thermodynamic efficiency. As the result, HADWC-HP-HI process shows the best performance with 31.79%, 53.46%, 50.69%, and 57.94% reducing over the conventional HAPSD process in terms of TAC, energy consumption, gas emissions and thermodynamic efficiency, respectively.