Optimization of a new combined approach to reduce energy consumption in the hybrid reactive distillation–pervaporation process

Abstract

This study combines feed splitting, internal heat integration, and heat integration between Pervaporation (PV) retentate streams and internal streams of reactive distillation (RD) column employed in TAME production in an attempt to optimize energy consumption in the process. All process parameters in the RD column, PV membrane process, and process energy consumption were optimized simultaneously. Further, the possibility of heat exchange between hot and cold streams was investigated by the optimization algorithm in internal heat integration in the RD column (R-HIDiC) as well as heat integration between retentate streams in PV modules and internal streams in the RD column. Accordingly, the number of heat exchangers and the heat exchange ratio of the streams was determined by the optimization algorithm. The Total Annual Cost (TAC) was adopted as the objective function to be optimized by a combination of Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm. Twelve different processes were optimized and compared. Optimization results suggest that the hybrid R-HIDiC–PV process with feed splitting and heat integration reduced the energy consumption by 42 % and TAC by 45 % compared to the hybrid PV–RD process and by 47 % and 48 %, respectively, compared to the hybrid RD–Pressure swing distillation process.