The isopropanol stream obtained by direct hydration of propylene is mainly the diisopropyl ether-isopropanol-water ternary mixture with a low concentration and multiple azeotropes that leads to high energy usage for downstream isopropanol processing. For this, a new three-column heteroazeotropic and pressure-swing coupling distillation process (TCHPSD) is proposed and further intensified by employing dividing-wall column (DWC) and vapor recompression (VRC) technologies, resulting in two energy-efficient processes (TCHPSD-DWC, TCHPSD-DWC-VRC). Rigorous simulations and a dual-staged sequential iterative method are used in the design and optimization of processes. The results show that the TCHPSD-DWC-VRC process achieves a significant reduction in total annual costs (12.0%) and energy consumptions (63.8%) in comparison with the TCHPSD process. Furthermore, thermodynamic and environmental evaluations based on exergy efficiency, pinch analysis and CO₂ emissions display that this double-effect intensified process is industrially sustainable, especially for industrial sites without access to cheap heat sources.

通过丙烯直接水合获得的异丙醇物流主要是低浓度且具有多个共沸物的二异丙基醚-异丙醇-水三元混合物，导致下游异丙醇加工的能源消耗较高。为此，提出了一种新的三塔异质共沸-变压耦合蒸馏工艺（TCHPSD），并通过采用隔壁塔（DWC）和蒸汽再压缩（VRC）技术进一步强化了工艺流程，从而产生了两种节能工艺（TCHPSD） -DWC，TCHPSD-DWC-VRC）。严格的仿真和双阶段顺序迭代方法用于过程的设计和优化。结果表明，与TCHPSD工艺相比，TCHPSD-DWC-VRC工艺可大幅降低年度总成本（12.0％）和能耗（63.8％）。₂排放表明，这种双重影响的强化过程在工业上是可持续的，特别是对于无法获得廉价热源的工业场所。