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4945507 
Journal Article 
Comparison of heteroazeotropic and extractive distillation for the dehydration of propylene glycol methyl ether 
Chen, YiC; Yu, BorYih; Hsu, CC; Chien, IL 
2016 
Yes 
Chemical Engineering Research and Design
ISSN: 0263-8762
EISSN: 1744-3563 
111 
184-195 
WOS:000380624300016 
Separation section often is the most energy intensive section of an industrial chemical process, even so when there is an azeotropic mixture needed to be separated. In order to further save energy in a particular azeotropic separation system, various heat integration methods were proposed. However, because of more complex nature of these heat integration methods, the operation and control of such process may be hindered. Since there are various ways which can be used to separate a particular azeotropic mixture, this paper uses an industrial relevant propylene glycol methyl ether dehydration system as an example to demonstrate that selecting the most effective separation method is crucially important in attempting to save energy of the separation system. The drawback of using heterogeneous azeotropic distillation for this separation task can easily be revealed with process understanding. A more effective separation method via extractive distillation is proposed to significantly save steam cost by 39.7% and reduce the total annual cost by 32.7%. Simple feed-effluent heat exchanger can be added in the proposed extractive distillation system to further save energy without much complication of the process design flowsheet. (C) 2016 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 
Azeotropes; Extractive distillation; Heterogeneous azeotropic distillation; Propylene glycol methyl ether; Process design