Abstract A systematic process synthesis method is investigated towards sustainable extractive distillation with pre-concentration. To approach energy saving, it is one of the common senses to eliminate the infamous remixing effects. In detail, the energy consumption bottleneck is initially analyzed to come at the inspiration to replace the pre-concentration column with a pre-stripper. Afterwards, a two-column scheme is synthesized by combining the pre-stripper with either the extractive distillation column or entrainer recovery column. Finally, an extractive dividing wall column (EDWC) scheme is synthesized. A fair comparison of all configurations is given under a simulation-based framework employing a stochastic algorithm to optimize all decision variables including the usually arbitrarily fixed operating pressure. The results demonstrate two-column schemes to be more promising, saving more than 30% of economic and environmental costs, and improving energy efficiency by 1–2 times compared to the conventional system. Besides, EDWC structures are not always advantageous in sustainability.

中文翻译：

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一种采用预浓缩分离二元最小共沸物的可持续萃取蒸馏工艺的系统工艺合成方法

摘要 研究了一种系统的工艺合成方法，以实现预浓缩的可持续萃取精馏。为了接近节能，消除臭名昭著的混音效果是常识之一。详细分析了能耗瓶颈，灵感来源于用预汽提塔代替预浓缩塔。然后，通过将预汽提塔与萃取蒸馏塔或夹带剂回收塔结合，合成了一个双塔方案。最后，合成了萃取分隔壁塔 (EDWC) 方案。在基于模拟的框架下对所有配置进行公平比较，该框架采用随机算法优化所有决策变量，包括通常任意固定的操作压力。结果表明，两柱方案更有前景，与传统系统相比，可节省30%以上的经济和环境成本，能效提高1-2倍。此外，EDWC 结构在可持续性方面并不总是有利的。