Sustainability evaluation of novel side-stream extractive distillation incorporating intermediate reboiler process for recovering ethyl acetate and methanol from wastewater based on multi-objective optimization

Zhang Ruimin; Yang Shuang; Li Jinlong; Wang Hui; Dai Tan; Ye Qing

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Sustainability evaluation of novel side-stream extractive distillation incorporating intermediate reboiler process for recovering ethyl acetate and methanol from wastewater based on multi-objective optimization

Updated：2026-05-14

- Sustainability evaluation of novel side-stream extractive distillation incorporating intermediate reboiler process for recovering ethyl acetate and methanol from wastewater based on multi-objective optimization
- Chinese Journal of Chemical Engineering Vol. 90, Issue 2, Pages: 232-248(2026)
- Affiliations：
  
  Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Catalytic Materials and Technology, School of Petrochemical Engineering, Changzhou University, Changzhou 213164, China
- Author bio：
  
  Corresponding authors. E-mail addresses: lijinlong@cczu.edu.cn (J. Li)
  Corresponding authors. E-mail addresses: huagonglou508@126.com (Q. Ye).
- Funds：
- DOI：
  CLC：
- Received：14 July 2025，
  
  Revised：2025-09-18，
  
  Accepted：19 September 2025，
  
  Online First：30 October 2025，
  
  Published：2026-02
- Accepted：
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Zhang Ruimin, Yang Shuang, Li Jinlong, et al. Sustainability evaluation of novel side-stream extractive distillation incorporating intermediate reboiler process for recovering ethyl acetate and methanol from wastewater based on multi-objective optimization[J]. Chinese Journal of Chemical Engineering, 2026, 90(2): 232-248.
DOI：

Zhang Ruimin, Yang Shuang, Li Jinlong, et al. Sustainability evaluation of novel side-stream extractive distillation incorporating intermediate reboiler process for recovering ethyl acetate and methanol from wastewater based on multi-objective optimization[J]. Chinese Journal of Chemical Engineering, 2026, 90(2): 232-248. DOI：

摘要

Abstract

Although side-stream extractive d

istillation (SED) is widely applied in azeotropic mixture separation due to its high efficiency and energy-saving advantages

the use of expensive high-pressure steam increases economic costs. The introduction of intermediate reboiler (IR) can reduce the consumption of high-pressure steam and thus reduce the operating cost. This work selects the extractive distillation process

using dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) as the solvent to separate ethyl acetate and methanol from wastewater. Based on the system characteristics

two SED processes are designed: SED-1 process directly obtains high-purity DMSO from the bottom of the SED column

whereas SED-2 process obtains a DMSO/water mixture at the bottom. To reduce high-pressure steam requirements

an IR is incorporated

leading to the proposal of SED-IR-1 and SED-IR-2 processes. Finally

heat-integrated processes (H-SEDIR-1 and H-SED-IR-2) are proposed based on the optimal SED-IR-1 and SED-IR-2 processes

which utilized the solvent stream waste heat to heat the IR to further reduce the energy consumption and operating cost. The results demonstrate that the H-SED-IR-1 process exhibits optimal economic performance with a 26.19% reduction in total annual cost compared with the conventional extractive distillation (CED) process

while the innovative H-SED-IR-2 process shows outstanding environmental benefits

achieving 38.78% and 39.97% reductions in CO

emissions and entropy generation

respectively

compared to the CED process.

关键词

Keywords

references

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