Investigation on energy-efficient extractive distillation for the recovery of ethyl acetate and 1,4-dioxane from industrial effluent

Conventional extractive distillation processes have been proposed to separate the ternary ethyl acetate-1,4-dioxane-water system with azeotropes. Energy-efficient extractive thermally coupled processes with heat integration have been developed to reduce energy consumption. A macro-analysis of the energy, exergy, economy, and environment is conducted to estimate the economic and environmental benefits. The results proved that an extractive dividing-wall column with a heat-integrated process possessed the greatest energy-saving potential, delivered best economic performance and exhibited highest exergy efficiency. Compared to those of a conventional direct extractive distillation process, the total energy requirement and total annual investment cost are reduced by 28.18% and 24.28%, respectively, by the best energy-saving process. The total exergy efficiency of it is 1.779%. The proposed cleaner and sustainable extractive dividing-wall column configuration could achieve energy saving, investment reduction, and effectively enhance the exergy efficiency.