Optimal design and operation of reactive distillation systems and reactive dividing wall systems with pressure swing distillation and hybrid distillation-pervaporation

Process intensification is essential in exploring more energy-efficient processes, and key examples related to fluid separations are reactive distillation and hybrid distillation-pervaporation processes. This work will consider the reaction and separation of a general quaternary reactive system with a minimum boiling binary azeotrope AC, in a reactive distillation column where, given the thermodynamics limitations, further downstream separation is required. Low and high chemical equilibrium is considered for the reaction. For the downstream purification, both pressure swing distillation and a hybrid distillation-pervaporation process are considered. For each of the structures, their intensified equivalent dividing wall structures are also considered, including a hybrid reactive dividing wall system. It is shown that reactive distillation followed by a hybrid distillation-pervaporation system can save up to 24% energy compared to reactive distillation with pressure swing separation, and that the dividing wall column counterpart structures have lower production-based total annualised costs than the corresponding base systems.