The hybrid RDWC–pervaporation with series–parallel arrangement and heat integration for ETBE production

Abstract

A new process configuration consisting of hybrid reactive dividing wall column (RWDC)–pervaporation (PV) (with series–parallel arrangement) with feed splitting and heat integration was proposed to produce ETBE. To evaluate the performance of the proposed method, it should be compared with other ETBE production processes. A total of 12 ETBE production processes were optimized for this purpose. All process parameters were considered optimization variables. TAC was used as objective function, but all processes were also compared in terms of energy consumption. To reduce the energy cost in the PV process, heat integration between the internal RDWC flows and streams entering the PV modules was used to eliminate all heaters in the PV process and also the RDWC condenser. Feed splitting was used to reduce the heat duty of the RDWC reboiler. According to the results, the proposed method reduced the TAC by 59% and 36% respectively compared with the conventional processes and the RDWC. This TAC reduction in the hybrid RDWC–PV process relative to the RDWC can be related to a decrease in the number of trays in the main and prefractionator sections, elimination of the condenser and a significant reduction in the heat duty of the reboiler.