A comprehensive economic optimization methodology of divided wall columns for biopolyol separation

Area of Science:

• Chemical Engineering
• Sustainable Energy
• Process Optimization

Background:

• Global energy and environmental crises necessitate sustainable alternatives to fossil fuels.
• Biomass is a key renewable resource for producing valuable chemicals like polyols.
• Conventional separation of biopolyols via distillation is energy-intensive and costly due to near volatility.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop an efficient and cost-effective method for purifying industrially valuable biopolyols.
• To optimize the design of fully heat-integrated divided wall columns (DWCs) for biopolyol separation.
• To minimize the total annual cost (TAC) of biopolyol separation through advanced process design.

Main Methods:

• Application of Response Surface Methodology (RSM) coupled with Box-Behnken Design (BBD).
• Investigating the interactions between design factors and their impact on TAC.
• Optimization of variables for fully heat-integrated divided wall columns (DWCs).

Main Results:

• The proposed RSM-based BBD effectively optimized DWC design variables.
• Significant total annual cost (TAC) savings of 41.09% were achieved compared to conventional distillation.
• The optimized DWC design demonstrated a powerful and reliable approach for cost reduction.

Conclusions:

• Optimized DWC design offers substantial cost and energy savings for biopolyol separation.
• This efficient separation technique promotes the wider adoption of environmentally friendly biopolyols.
• Advancements in process design are crucial for the economic viability of biomass-derived products.