(189f) Separation of Complex Mixture and Solvent Recylcing Using Dividing Wall Batch Column

While the dividing wall columns for continuous distillations have become quite popular, we present the first detailed analysis of a dividing wall column for batch distillation for separation of complex mixtures. The industrial case study used here is to separate acetonitrile from an aqueous acetonitrile waste mixture, a challenging problem because of the thermodynamic complexity of the mixture. In our earlier work, two effective candidate entrainers, propyl amine, having high relative volatility, and acetone, having low relative volatility were generated by a computer-aided molecular design approach for this separation. We design optimal campaigns to separate water, acetonitrile, and the solvent using the batch dividing wall column. We compare these dividing wall column campaigns with optimal campaigns for rectifier, stripper, and the middle vessel column. We show that the dividing wall column reduces batch time, number of cuts, and increases yield.