Heterogeneous azeotropic distillation is routinely used in chemical industry to separate close boiling point mixtures and azeotropes, which are not easily separated in a normal distillation process.Dividing wall column is one of the most promising technologies to minimize the energy consumption that leads to minimize the operating cost. Dividing wall column provide a large potential energy saving up to more than 30% compared to the conventional column sequences.The aim of this work is to figure out a novel approach to apply the dividing wall column in heterogeneous azeotropic distillation as well as minimize energy required. In this paper, four-component heterogeneous system was investigated: water, acetic acid (HAC), component X, and heavy organics. Water, acetic acid and component X form a two-liquid phase system.Two alternatives were investigated. Both of them allow downsizing the chemical plant but only with the Petlyuk arrangement we can achieve an energy saving up to 18.3% compared to the conventional design. Energy saving achieved in this work is not as much as expected, but at least it shows the significant potential for the combination of Petlyuk arrangement and ternary heterogeneous distillation.
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