Dividing wall column application in the distillation process and the optimization study on the economic and energy consumption

As an important monomer raw material to produce biodegradable plastics and NMP for positive electrode coatings in new energy batteries, 1,4-butanediol (BDO) is of great significance in solving white pollution and protecting the ecological environment. The conventional distillation process of BDO has a high energy consumption, low heat recovery capacity and high cost. This study aims to achieve energy conservation, consumption reduction, and reductions in both investment and operational costs for the BDO production process. To increase the energy utilization and reduce the operating costs, a distillation scheme with a dividing wall column (DWC) combining sensitivity analysis optimization and process intensification technology has been proposed. The effects of reflux ratio of distillation column and the bottoms-to-feed ratio on mass fraction and heat load of BDO were investigated through simulation. The DWC equivalent model was constructed on the basis of optimizing the operation parameters of the rectification column. The results show that compared with the conventional distillation processes with the same separation purity, the optimized DWC process reduces energy consumption by approximately 43.1%, operating costs by 40.9%, investment costs by 41.6%, and annual total cost by 41.0%. These results highlight the practical application value of DWC in optimizing the distillation process for BDO manufacturing.