Application of Dividing Wall Columns.

Amit Kumar Chaturvedi (112CH0397)

Introduction

Dividing wall column (DWC) is one of the most promising technology for the future industrial
scenario. It can be described as a single shell, fully thermally coupled distillation column
capable of separating mixtures of three or more components into high purity products. It
requires much less energy, capital and space, compared to conventional columns in any
configurations This makes DWC to something that corresponds with the present day idea of
sustainable process technology. But the technology is not yet developed up to the extent that it
can be put to industrial standards and practical issues are needed to be solved for their
successful implementation. Various works have been done in order to take forward the vast
prospects that dividing wall columns have to offer.

Discussions

Though dividing wall columns have not been much exploited industrially up until now, but
results pertaining to its usage have already proved its importance in the upcoming future.
Dejanovic et al. (2010) compared DWC to conventional columns-in-series and/or in-parallel
configurations to find that a DWC requires much less energy, capital and space, corresponding
with the present day idea of sustainable process technology. They gave a complete overview
of the work done so far on the research and implementation of DWCs and practical issues that
needed to be solved for their successful implementation. They also looked at what is needed
on research and engineering side to enable maximization of potential gains by building DWCs
for obtaining four or even more products containing two or more partition walls in parallel.

Yildirim et al. (2011) considered dividing wall columns (DWCs) a very promising technology
allowing a significant energy requirement reduction. They reviewed current industrial
applications of DWCs and related research activities, including column configuration, design,
modelling and control issues. They also explored into the area of application of DWCs for
azeotropic, extractive and reactive distillation.
 Figure 1- Dividing Wall Column (Yildirim et al.,2011)

Chu et al. (2011) described a novel short-cut method that can be used to rapidly determine near-
optimal values of important design parameters, including the reflux ratio, number of stages in
all sections, and split liquid and vapor ratios for the three most common types of DWCs. The
method is applied to two real systems, and the results are compared with results from rigorous
simulations and optimization. The shortcut method leads to a process similar to a feasible actual
process, and the total annual cost (TAC) also decreases. They also applied the method to a
fictitious process consisting of three components with constant relative volatilities, for different
values of the ease of separation index (ESI), overall split difficulty, and feed composition. The
results indicate that the method works well for a variety of process conditions and that the
minimum vapor flow rate is a good surrogate for the total cost of process operation.

Kiss et al. (2011) discusses the reasons for the limited spreading of DWC at industrial scale.
One of the major reasons is the insufficient insight with regard to the operation and control of
a DWC –making most chemical companies reticent to large-scale implementations. They gave
an overview of the available control strategies for DWC, varying from the classic three-point
control structure and PID controllers in a multi-loop framework to model predictive control
(MPC) and other advanced control strategies. Their results show that MIMO controllers
perform better than multi-loop PID controllers. All things considered, this work clearly
concludes the fact that there are no real solid grounds for concern, regarding the problem of
DWC controllability.

Bravo et al. (2010) in their work, proposed a novel extractive dividing wall distillation column,
which has been designed using a constrained stochastic multi-objective optimization technique.
They have used genetic algorithms to determine the design that minimizes energy consumption
and total annualized cost. The theoretical aspects have been confirmed by simulation results
which show the effect of the main variables on the complex extractive distillation process.

Summary

The recent advancements in the area of the applications of DWC has surely proved its
importance to industries. Though much work has not yet been performed on the DWC on an
industrial scale, but promising small scale results have heightened the hopes of many
researchers. Lesser energy usage, more cost effective and wide range of operation makes DWC
all the more useful in the long run.

References

Dejanovic, I., Matijasevic, Lj., Olujic, Z.,2010. Dividing wall column—A breakthrough
towards sustainable distilling. Chemical Engineering and Processing 49 (2010) 559–580.

Yildirim, O., Kiss, A.A., Kenig, E.Y., 2011. Dividing wall columns in chemical process
industry: A review on current activities. Separation and Purification Technology 80 (2011)
403–417.

Chu, K., Cadoret, L., Yu, C.C., Ward, J.D., A New Shortcut Design Method and Economic
Analysis of Divided Wall Columns. dx.doi.org/10.1021/ie200234p.Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2011,
50, 9221 – 9235.

Kiss, A.A., Bildea, C.S., 2011. A control perspective on process intensification in dividing-
wall columns. Chemical Engineering and Processing 50 (2011) 281–292.

Bravo, C., Hernandez, J.G.S., Antonio, C.G., Duran, A.L., Petriciolet, A.B., Ramirez, A.B.,
2010. Extractive Dividing Wall Column: Design and Optimization. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2010,
49, 3672–3688.