Abstract
The present study shows an exergy-based strategy for defining the type of Heat Integrated Distillation Column HIDiC, most suitable for separating the propylene-propane system. For comparing and validating the results, the analysis was performed on conventional column, vapor recompression column (VRC) and several HIDiC configurations: Top, Bottom, Basic, Optimal and Total. Uniform heat transfer area was used for the heat distribution between the internal and external column sections. As main result, it was found that Top HIDiC has the best performance among the HIDiC configurations with a 66.4% of exergy saving compared to a conventional column, followed by the Total HIDiC with a 43.4%. In fact, Top HIDiC shows better exergetic behavior than VRC (55.0% of exergy saving), which is currently used in the industry for the separation of the studied system. Additionally, results confirm that the selection of the configuration for energy integration is not an obvious task and that the presented strategy can be applied for the analysis of the separation of other mixtures.
