Julian Kiang

CHE117
11/20/2014
Energy
Distillation is an important everyday process for chemical engineering. Like every
other process, distillation consumes and uses energy and a lot of it. Almost all of the
supplied heat in the reboiler in a conventional distillation process is discarded in the
overhead condenser, which is quite problematic. That is why energy saving is a must. With
energy saving, the energy consumption can be reduced and save money. By using a process
unit that can divide basic functions to balance the heating and cooling from the vapors, this
unit can send the heat back into the system and greatly reduce energy consumption. The
following process is called self-heat recuperation technology, also known as SHRT. SHRT
is a process unit that uses compressors installed in the overhead vapor line, where each
compressor treats each respective unit based on energy recuperation. The heat from the
stream is discharged to the compressor and that heat passes to the reboiler. The same
application is applied for the compressor and the feed heater.
Although there is such a unique process like SHRT, there have been predecessors to
this technology like VRC and HlDiC. These two technologies utilize vapor compression to
decrease the heating load of the column. However, these two processes neglect the
preheating and only consider the heat recovery duty to the reboiler. With the SHRT, both of
these obstacles are covered so the problems the predecessors face should not faze SHRT a
bit.
In this paper, the case study to test the effect of SHRT was established. The studied
process was the distillation of benzene from an equimolar mixture of benzene and toluene.
In this study, the scientists examined the process in a simple feedstock example and used
industrial application in order to determine the feedback for industrial use. Cost saving was
also an important issue that was examined in the experiment.
The experiment studied two types of process each with two separate cases, giving a
total of four processes. From the data presented, the conventional heat recovery improved
process and the advanced process saved more energy compared to the conventional base
process and the advanced economical process. The heat recovery improved expended
92.2% of the original heat while the base utilized all 100% of the heat. Meanwhile the
Advanced process took only 51% of the heat compared to 60.1% from the economical
process. The economical process was considered because the advanced process would have
raised the funds required for the project substantially.
In conclusion, the self-heat recuperative distillation process has been tested and
shown results for improving energy saving. The advanced process that utilizes two
compression units reduced the energy consumption to 51% compared to the base version.
However with cost issues, an economical advanced process was designed, changing the
consumption to 60.1% of the original energy. Although the economical didnt save as much
as the advanced one, it was considered to be enough energy saving compared to the base
case. From the experimental results, scientists determined that SHRT will surely be able to
reduce energy consumption in industrial applications.

Julian Kiang
CHE117
11/20/2014
Works Cited
Matsuda, Kazuo., Kawazuishi, Kenichi., Kansha, Yasuki., Fushimi, Chihiro., Nagao,
Masaki., Kunikiyo, Hiroshi., Masuda, Fusao., Tsutsumi, Atsushi. Advanced energy
saving in distillation process with self-heat recuperation technology. Energy 36
(2011): 4640-5. ELSEVIER. Web. 19 November. 2014.