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Energy-efficient recovery of tetrahydrofuran and ethyl acetate by triple-column extractive distillation: entrainer design and process optimization

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Abstract

An energy-efficient triple-column extractive distillation process is developed for recovering tetrahydrofuran and ethyl acetate from industrial effluent. The process development follows a rigorous hierarchical design procedure that involves entrainer design, thermodynamic analysis, process design and optimization, and heat integration. The computer-aided molecular design method is firstly used to find promising entrainer candidates and the best one is determined via rigorous thermodynamic analysis. Subsequently, the direct and indirect triple-column extractive distillation processes are proposed in the conceptual design step. These two extractive distillation processes are then optimized by employing an improved genetic algorithm. Finally, heat integration is performed to further reduce the process energy consumption. The results indicate that the indirect extractive distillation process with heat integration shows the highest performance in terms of the process economics.

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Acknowledgements

This work is financially supported by the National Key Research and Development Project (Grant No. 2019YFC0214403), the Joint Supervision Scheme with the Chinese mainland, Taiwan region and Macao Universities—Other Chinese mainland, Taiwan region and Macao Universities (Grant No. SB2S to Yang A).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing, 401331, China

    Ao Yang & Weifeng Shen

  2. Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China

    Ao Yang, Tao Shi & Jingzheng Ren

  3. School of Intelligent Technology and Engineering, Chongqing University of Science & Technology, Chongqing, 401331, China

    Yang Su

  4. Process Systems Engineering, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, D-39106, Magdeburg, Germany

    Teng Zhou

  5. Process Systems Engineering, Max Planck Institute for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems, D-39106, Magdeburg, Germany

    Teng Zhou

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  1. Ao Yang
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  3. Tao Shi
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  4. Jingzheng Ren
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Correspondence to Weifeng Shen or Teng Zhou.

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Energy-efficient recovery of tetrahydrofuran and ethyl acetate by triple-column extractive distillation: entrainer design and process optimization

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Yang, A., Su, Y., Shi, T. et al. Energy-efficient recovery of tetrahydrofuran and ethyl acetate by triple-column extractive distillation: entrainer design and process optimization. Front. Chem. Sci. Eng. 16, 303–315 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11705-021-2044-z

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