Analysis and Evaluation of a Heat Integrated Horizontal Distillation System

We present a model-based approach to analyze a heat integrated horizontal distillation system for separating mixture of light alcohols from second-generation biomass. The objective is to highlight the application of anengineering tool developed based on process system engineering methods. The tool is used to analyze and evaluate the proposed separation system and to provide guidelines with respect to specific design and process variables.

The model is used to perform sensitivity analysis studies on important variables such as mass and heat transfer coefficients, interfacial area and to perform simulation studies to investigate the sensitivity system performance to heat transfer area, product purity and recovery. The objective of the sensitivity analysis of the transport coefficients is to show the effect of possible deviations on the performance of the process and to provide detailed knowledge.

The analysis has shown that changes in transport coefficients do not affect the performance of the system unless there are significant deviations (>80%). Simulation studies in heat transfer area show that increased heat transfer area leads to process improvements in terms of energy consumption.