ENERGY SAVINGS IN HEAT-INTEGRATED DISTILLATION-COLUMNS

The heat-integrated distillation column (HIDiC) provides one of the mo st effective applications of heat-pump technologies to industrial proc esses. It reinforces a separation process and yields larger energy sav ings than other methods such as overhead-to-reboiler heat pumps, which involve moving heat between the hottest and coldest points in the dis tillation column. A simulation study of this column has been applied t o the benzene-toluene system to evaluate energy consumption and the re quired number of stages for comparison with a conventional column. In an example, the total energy requirements were reduced about 60% below those for a conventional column. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.