Evaluation of Economical and Environmental Performance for An Internally Heat-Integrated Distillation Column (HIDiC)

Optimum operation, energy saving, carbon-dioxide emission and cost estimation of a pilot plant of an internally heat-integrated distillation column (HIDiC) separating a twelve-component hydrocarbon mixture to obtain residue-product of crude cyclopentane were studied. From the operation results of the HIDiC at zero external reflux and reboiler free operation, the reduction in CO2 emission by the HIDiC was 56.6 kg/h (453 t/y), which is 63.5% of the total CO2 emission of the conventional distillation column. The HIDiC pilot plant is prospected to be reasonable according to the inflation of the steam cost. The cost estimation results were also compared with those obtained from the conventional column, which showed that the HIDiC pilot plant can indicate a strikingly shorter payback time.