Heat-Integrated Pressure-Swing Distillation Process for Separation of a Maximum-Boiling Azeotrope Ethylenediamine/Water

A partially heat-integrated pressure-swing distillation process is designed for the separation of a maximum-boiling azeotrope of ethylenediamine/water. Aspen Plus and Aspen Dynamics are used to study rigorous steady state and dynamic simulations for this neat operation. An optimized configuration of this process is developed based on the proposed partial optimization and global economical optimization. From the results, it is found that the process with partial heat integration is more competitive than the non-heat-integrated one from the economic point view. The partially heat-integrated process helps save energy consumption of 19.79% and TAC of 15.30%, respectively. Basic and improved control structures are explored in this system, so that the better control solutions are discussed from the comparison. Purity fluctuations of products can be decreased by adding a ratio control block in the process. And the dynamic control is kept within acceptable limits. (C) 2015 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.