In order to explore the advantages of self-heat recuperative distillation(SHRD) process, the design and control of the SHRD process was studied for the separation of n-butanol and iso-butanol mixtures. The economic superiority of SHRD process is presented when a comparison on the total annual cost(TAC) of the conventional distillation process, the vapor recompression distillation process and the SHRD process was made. For the SHRD process, 37.74% and 11.35% savings of TAC can be achieved as compared to the conventional distillation process and vapor recompression distillation process, respectively. The dynamic characteristics of this promising SHRD sequence had been studied, and the dynamic responses demonstrated that 10% changes in both feed flow rate and feed composition can be well handled by the control strategy with dual-temperature control. It is proven that the SHRD system not only can provide economical savings but also can operate normally with good controllability.
