Simulation of divided wall column for separating dimethyl ether from water-methanol mixture

Use of dividded wall column was one of the methods to save energy consumption and costs in multicomponents distillations. For separation of dimethyl ether from methanol and water, two distillation column were used. To reduce the energy consumption, dividded wall column can be used instead of two distillation columns. In this paper, a divided wall column was simulated and compared with a conventional distillation tower for an industrial case. The results showed that the divided wall column structure has a beneficial outcome in the product’s purity (methanol). In divided wall column structure, the heat load of the condenser and reboiler was reduced to about 24% and 7%, respectively.