Design of dividing wall columns for butanol recovery in a thermochemical biomass to butanol process

摘要: Abstract In this work, ternary and quaternary dividing wall column (DWC) configurations for the separation of a multicomponent feed stream from novel thermochemical lignocellulosic biomass to butanol process are designed, modeled assessed. The goal is separate into four major products, with key product being biobutanol rich stream. Due complexity DWC models, shortcut modeling approach based on minimum energy mountain method (also called “V min diagram method”) used determine good initial values decision variables rigorous simulation configurations. Furthermore, each configuration optimized minimize total annualized cost use derivative free algorithm coupled simulator. results show that achieves up 31% savings, 15% capital savings in comparison conventional distillation sequence, thus better option implementation biofuel process.