Chemical Engineering and Processing 49 (2010) 559580

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Chemical Engineering and Processing:

Process Intensication
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cep

Review

Dividing wall columnA breakthrough towards sustainable distilling

I. Dejanovic, Lj. Matijasevic, Z. Olujic
Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Technology, University of Zagreb, Savska cesta 16, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Dividing wall column (DWC) is a single shell, fully thermally coupled distillation column capable of sep-
Received 25 December 2009 arating mixtures of three or more components into high purity products. Compared to conventional
Received in revised form 2 March 2010 columns-in-series and/or in-parallel congurations a DWC requires much less energy, capital and space.
Accepted 2 April 2010
This makes DWC to something that corresponds with the present day idea of sustainable process tech-
Available online 12 April 2010
nology. Based on published papers and patent literature this paper aims to give a complete overview of
the work done so far on the research and implementation of DWCs, from early ideas on thermal coupling
Keywords:
of distillation columns to practical issues that needed to be solved for their successful implementation.
Distillation
Thermally coupled columns
Approaches to short-cut and rigorous simulation, optimization, and control are highlighted, with par-
Dividing wall columns ticular focus on column internals and dimensioning, which is only conceptually considered in academic
Sustainable distillation publications. A survey of relevant patents is included providing information on equipment innovations
and application areas of industrial interest. Finally authors look at what is needed on research and engi-
neering side to enable maximization of potential gains by building DWCs for obtaining four or even more
products containing two or more partition walls in parallel, which is something not yet attempted in
industrial practice.
2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Contents

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 560
2. Backgrounds and chronology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 560
3. Fully thermally coupled columns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 564
3.1. Three products DWC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 565
3.2. Four products DWC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 565
4. DWC design approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 566
4.1. Setting-up a DWC performance calculation/simulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 566
4.2. Approximate design methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 567
4.2.1. Vmin -diagram method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 567
4.3. Detailed simulation of a 3-product DWC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 568
4.3.1. Pump around model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 568
4.3.2. Two columns sequence model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 568
4.3.3. Four columns sequence model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 568
4.3.4. Simultaneous models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 568
4.4. Detailed simulation of a 4-product DWC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 568
4.5. Optimization methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 569
4.6. Dimensioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 569
4.7. Controllability and operability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 570
5. Constructional aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 571
6. Reported and patented applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573
6.1. Reactive DWC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 574

Corresponding author at: Process and Energy Laboratory, Delft University of Technology, Leegwaterstraat 44, 2628 CA Delft, The Netherlands.
E-mail address: z.olujic@tudelft.nl (Z. Olujic).

0255-2701/$ see front matter 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.cep.2010.04.001
560 I. Dejanovic et al. / Chemical Engineering and Processing 49 (2010) 559580

7. Concluding remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 575

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 576
Appendix A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 576
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 578

1. Introduction problem is that the number of possible column sequences increases

exponentially with the number of components to be separated.
Separations performed in distillation columns are responsible Therefore an effort toward nding the optimal separation sequence
for largest fraction of immense amount of energy consumed in pro- is necessary, and the best solution is usually that generating low-
cess industries. Therefore distillation operations became a major est total annualized cost. Systematic column sequencing is a very
concern within sustainability challenge, i.e. a primary target of broad and complex area of research, and a lot of work has been
energy saving efforts in industrially developed countries [1]. Being published on the subject, such as reported in papers by Agrawal
by far the most widely used separation process in industrial prac- [9], Caballero et al. [10], Grossmann et al. [11], Fidkowski [12], and
tice, utilizing largest scale equipment, distillation is also one of most Henrich et al. [13].
capital intensive process technologies. Driven by global industrial The focus of this paper is on recent developments around sharp
growth it tends to grow in both number and size of applications [2]. and non-sharp separations where heat coupling can be combined
Hence the present day challenge is to design distillation systems in a highly benecial way with equipment compactness, sim-
that at the same time are sustainable and economically feasible, i.e. ply by placing two columns into one shell. Distillation column
industrially viable. with one longitudinal partition wall welded to the column walls,
When considering the workhorse of process industry, a distil- which is generally known as a dividing wall column (DWC), allows,
lation column with one feed and two, i.e. overhead and bottom as proven in numerous applications, a signicant energy saving
products, a better overall performance can be achieved, if appro- combined with substantial capital and space saving. The appli-
priate, by employing better operation and control, by using more cation windows as well as potential gains in this respect could
advanced column internals, or by employing side heat exchang- be further signicantly increased by adopting recently introduced
ers [1,3]. These options are particularly interesting because they non-welded wall technology, which, most importantly, allows
allow capacity and/or efciency increase (reduction of specic placing three or even more columns into one shell. However, main
energy requirement) of existing columns at minimum investment. stream of the papers on this subject deal with maximizing the
However, substantial energy savings can be expected only from thermodynamic efciency of a separation utilizing heat or thermal
implementation of energy saving concepts in new designs. coupling, and in open literature there is no usable information on
A problem with new designs, i.e. implementation of highly physical implementation of complex DWC congurations. Here the
efcient energy saving technologies is that these are generally real challenge is on equipment design side, i.e. providing internal
capital intensive. Typical example is employment of heat pump column conguration which will allow full exploitation of avail-
assisted distillation, which, technically speaking solves the prob- able heat coupling related energy saving potential. Therefore this
lem at its source, by avoiding use of an external heat source in review paper is not intended to be an extensive review of com-
the reboiler. However, due to high capital expenditures required plete work done on heat coupling, but more a survey classifying
to purchase tting compressor(s), it appeared to be industrially the contributions on all relevant aspects, with particular empha-
viable only in case of large capacity, end of the train (practically sis on equipment design and applications. The latter are elaborated
binary) separations of close boiling mixtures which require mini- to a greater detail in numerous most recently published patents.
mum compressor/compression effort related costs. This appeared Including relevant information from patents, this review can serve
to be the case mainly with separation of rather light hydrocar- as guide for those less experienced in this eld to better under-
bons, like C2 , C3 and C4 components, where adiabatic exponent stand the developments and prospects for further improvements
of substances is large enough to enable a signicant temperature of dividing wall column technology.
rise by a relatively low compression effort [4,5]. Costlier and more
risk associated option in this respect is to implement theoretically 2. Backgrounds and chronology
and experimentally proven, but industrially not yet applied column
congurations that offer potential for energy saving beyond that As well known, if we consider separation of a three compo-
achievable with conventional heat pump assisted distillations. Typ- nent feed into pure products, an obvious choice is to employ either
ical example is so called internally heat integrated column or HIDiC so called direct or indirect conguration, shown schematically in
[2], which, by combining direct vapour recompression with uni- Fig. 1a and1b, respectively. Another possibility is to go for a three
form distribution of heat duty along integrated part of the column columns conguration (Fig. 1c), employing a column performing
(diabatic operation) allows minimisation of energy requirement of a non-sharp, i.e. sloppy separation and two columns performing a
a distillation column. However, being a heat pump assisted process sharp separation. Since in this case the bottoms of the second col-
requiring a heavy heat transfer infrastructure to enable a uniform umn and overheads of the third column deliver pure component
distribution of required heat duty along the column, a HIDiC repre- B, these could simply be connected into one column and compo-
sents a complex and capital highly intensive column conguration nent B obtained as a pure side-stream (see Fig. 2a). According to
[6]. This fact, as well as the lack of necessary process and mechani- an overview article and the chapter on distillation sequencing in a
cal design know-how, is a major technical barrier to be overcome to book by Smith [8,14], where this and other heat coupling congu-
realize this, regarding the potential, ultimate energy saving concept rations for separation of three component mixtures are elaborated
in case of stand alone columns. and explained in detail, the prefractionator arrangement shown
On the distillation system design level, various methods can be in Fig. 2a requires signicantly less energy than conventional col-
used to make continuous distillation process more energy efcient umn congurations. The reason for this is the avoidance of remixing
[7,8] and thus more sustainable. When the feed is a multicompo- of internal streams, which in two columns in series arrangements
nent mixture and more than two products need to be obtained, the exhibits concentration peaks of middle boiling components either
number of columns required to isolate pure products or specied above or below the feed. Additional gain in this respect comes from
fractions is equal to the number of components minus one. The the fact that the prefractionator arrangement, which distributes the
 I. Dejanovic et al. / Chemical Engineering and Processing 49 (2010) 559580
Fig. 1. Common, column-in-series and in-parallel sequences for separating a three-component mixture into pure products.
intermediate component between top and bottom, allows greater
freedom to match the feed composition with a tray in the column to
further reduce mixing losses at the feed tray [8]. This mixing as well
as remixing of streams with different compositions that occurs at
feed point(s) and along column, which is inevitably accompanied
by entropy of mixing formation, is an intrinsic source of ther-
modynamic inefciency of the separation process occurring in a
multicomponent distillation column [4,5,7,8,14,15].
A further capital saving benet can be arranged, where appropri-
ate, by removing condenser and the reboiler of the prefractionator
column. This leads to a conguration shown schematically in Fig. 2b
Fig. 2. More energy efcient three-component separation sequences including (a)
a conventional prefracionator column, and (b) a thermally coupled prefractionator.
561
that has been widely introduced in a 1965 paper by Petlyuk et al.
[15], and is generally known as Petlyuk column. In fact, omitted
condenser and reboiler are effectively replaced by thermal (heat)
coupling of prefractionator column with the main column, with
the necessary condenser and reboiler being attached to the main
column. Therefore this conguration is generally known as fully
thermally (heat) coupled column.
This is not limited only to three component mixtures. According
to Christiansen et al. [16], in general a Petlyuk column is: ...a col-
umn arrangement, separating three or more components using a single
reboiler and a single condenser, in which any degree of separation
(purity) can be obtained by increasing the number of stages, provided
the reux is above a certain minimum value and the separation is
thermodynamically feasible.
However, the idea of using one heat ux for more than one
separation task, which in addition to energy saving enables also
a substantial capital and space saving by avoiding certain number
of condensers and reboilers as well as columns, is older, i.e. it has
been introduced and elaborated for the rst time in 1936 in a Dutch
patent [41,850] and subsequently in a 1942 US patent [2,295,256],
by Antoine Johan Brugma, from The Hague, Netherlands. Both
patents have been led in 1936. Brugma should certainly be cred-
ited and referred to as inventor of thermal coupling of distillation
columns. According to his words, in addition to the benets like a
saving in ground space and in cost of equipment, . . . the advan-
tages of the invention include economy of heat and cooling water
due to utilization of the same quantity of the heat and cooling
water for a multiple fractionation, . . .. Brugmas pioneer role in
this respect has been acknowledged accordingly in a 1972 paper by
Stupin and Lockhart [17], who have evaluated and conrmed con-
siderable energy saving potential of thermally coupled distillation
systems for separation of close boiling components. They also refer
562 I. Dejanovic et al. / Chemical Engineering and Processing 49 (2010) 559580
Fig. 3. Common side-stripper and side-rectier arrangements.
to a 1962 US patent [3,058,893], by Cahn and DiMicheli, from Esso
R&E Co., introducing the fully thermally coupled column for obtain-
ing four pure products, as well as to Petlyuk et al. publications, as
a rediscovery of thermal coupling.
One should mention that a simple form of thermal coupling
has been implemented in petroleum rening practice well before
Brugma patent, by feeding the side stream of a common column
to either a side-stripper or a side-rectier to increase accordingly
the purity of the side product. This effectively means that in former
case a condenser and in latter case a reboiler has been omitted, i.e.
replaced by thermal (heat) coupling. This way of saving energy has
been implemented on the largest scale in rening eld, as so called
pumparounds, which provide for required heat addition or removal
accompanied by some separation effect; the crude oil above atmo-
spheric and vacuum distillation columns being typical examples.
Indeed, the columns utilising side rectier and/or side stripper,
shown schematically in Fig. 3a and b, respectively, to obtain the
side product, proved to be highly useful and practical solutions for
increasing energy efciency of three-product distillation columns,
where appropriate [8,18].
Although there was no doubt that Petlyuk column could save
both energy and capital, the process industry went through two
major oil-price crises in mid 1970s and early 1980s before this was
done in practice. Most interestingly, it was implemented in mid
1980s at BASF SE in Ludwigshafen, in a constructively more effec-
tive way, as a dividing wall column (DWC), i.e. as a single shell
column with a partition wall that physically separates the middle
section of the column into a feed section, acting as a prefractiona-
tor, and a side draw section which allows concentration of medium
boiling component to a very high purity (see Fig. 4). One should note
that unlike conventional columns with a side draw, a DWC is capa-
Fig. 4. A DWC with partitioned thermally coupled prefractionator.
Fig. 5. A DWC with (a) a side-stripper, and (b) a side-rectier.
ble of delivering high purity side product, i.e. producing three high
purity products in a single shell.
The Petlyuk column and a DWC shown schematically in Figs. 2a
and 4, respectively, are thermodynamically equivalent, and being a
one shell column a DWC allows additional reduction of capital costs
as well as the space required for installation. One should mention
that using one shell with partitioning wall was suggested as a pos-
sibility for realizing a compact fully coupled column by Petlyuk et
al. [15], as well as by Kaibel [19], who extended basic ideas to sepa-
rations of multicomponent mixtures to four and more products in
one shell, including also chemical reactions as well as connecting
dividing wall columns in series.
However practical advantages of a DWC were recognized long
ago. Origins of a DWC, with a partition wall separating middle part
of a column into two parallel sections may be found in a US patent
1,915,681 issued in 1933 to E.W. Luster, of Standard Oil Company,
for an Apparatus for fractionating cracked products, which was
led in 1930. The same idea, but now for general purposes, is elab-
orated in a US patent 2,471,134 issued to R.O. Wright in 1949. His
conguration resembles that shown in Fig. 4. Another early Ameri-
can patent [2,134,882] is that assigned to D.A. Monro in 1938, where
potential benets of a conguration with partition wall placed in
the centre of bottom part of the column are described (see Fig. 5a).
His goal was an improved fractionating or stabilizing column with a
minimum heat loss for use in production of a multiplicity of hydro-
carbons stock of different grades. Interesting to mention is that both
Monro and Wright were employees of Standard Oil. Therefore their
inventions address renery applications. However, Monro men-
tions: Obviously many modications will suggest themselves to
those skilled in the art but . . .. An equivalent to his conguration
is that shown in Fig. 5b, with top part of the column separated in
two sections, which appears for the rst time in a 1998 patent by
Ognisty and Manley [US 5,709,780] of the Kellog, Root & Brown.
However, earlier patents published in 1967 [US 3,314,879] by R.K.
Lacey and C.H. Zakovi of Esso R&E and in 1968 [US 3,412,016] by
R.G. Graven of Mobil Oil follow the line of Monro and come with
proposals for obtaining two separate bottoms products in addi-
tion to overhead product. A specic feature is that both proposals
consider two feed streams with different compositions. The for-
mer is thought to serve for separation of two different crude oil
feeds at the same time, while the latter is essentially same con-
cept but applicable to a plurality of hydrocarbon mixtures. A
conventional DWC, similar to that presented in Wrights patent
is elaborated into greater detail in a 1980 patent [4,230,533] by
V. A. Giroux of Phillips Petroleum Company. Specic features of
this patent are provisions to control ows and compositions of two
phases.
 I. Dejanovic et al. / Chemical Engineering and Processing 49 (2010) 559580
Fig. 6. The number of DWCs delivered by Montz until the end of 2009.
Being related to rening industry all mentioned patents deal
with a tray column, all equipped with a longitudinal partition wall,
which is xed by welding, separating the divided part of the col-
umn into two, semicircular columns with equal cross-sectional
area. According to our present knowledge none of these patented
congurations has been implemented in practice before late 1990s.
For the rst time a DWC was built and taken into operation
at BASF in Ludwigshafen, Germany, in 1985, as a packed column.
Other columns equipped with structured packings followed and
presently there are around 70 packed DWCs, some of impressive
dimensions (diameters above 4 m and heights up to 80 m), in oper-
ation in BASF plants worldwide. Internals for nearly all of these
columns have been delivered by J. Montz GmbH, and the necessary
process and mechanical design know-how was developed in close
cooperation of BASF and Montz.
This is certainly a major milestone in the development of this
technology. Practical implementation at BASF has been accompa-
nied by two German and subsequently European patents issued in
1984 to G. Kaibel of BASF AG (see Appendix A). These patents make
a step further by describing specic application aspects, including
reactive distillation, and congurations suitable for separation of
four component mixtures into four pure products. This was a begin-
ning; with increasing number of applications also the number of
patents has grown and today nearly half of all patents in this eld
are owned by BASF and Montz. Indeed the credit for further devel-
opment and, most importantly industrial implementation of DWC
goes to Dr. G. Kaibel and co-workers from BASF, Ludwigshafen, as
well as to process equipment manufacturer J. Montz from Hilden,
Germany, for contributions to process and mechanical design as
well as construction of packed DWCs. Most recent patents from
BASF address mainly applications, with a DWC as essential con-
stituent of the process.
First applications went largely unnoticed by competitors. In the
mean time the know-how and condence of BASF and Montz peo-
ple grew accordingly, which, upon implementation of non-welded
partition wall in mid 1990s led to a real breakthrough of this tech-
nology, rst within the BASF and then in general. Indeed adopting
non-welded partition wall, which enabled the large increase in the
application window, can be considered as another milestone in
development and implementation of this technology. This is indi-
cated by the sudden change in the slope of the curve shown in
Fig. 6, representing the number of DWCs delivered by Montz over
the years. One should mention here that DWCs built and delivered
so far by Montz are all equipped with structured packings. This is
not surprising if one knows that these columns are used mainly
563
for separations of various heavier chemicals, which are carried out
under vacuum conditions.
Again, it was a paper by G. Kaibel published in 1987 [19] that
brought the DWC and its development potential to the attention
of academic community which already was busy with looking for
energy efcient coupling of column sequences for separation of
multicomponent mixtures. From this moment on DWC became a
subject of academic interest, generating an ever growing stream
of papers. These can be classied as those dealing with thermo-
dynamic analyses of heat coupling congurations [1826], those
discussing performance evaluation and conceptual design proce-
dures [2745], and those addressing process control related aspects
[39,4665], and will be dealt with, where appropriate, later on.
Regarding the applications, design and construction, and per-
formance of DWC in industrial environment, there is nothing to be
found until 2000, when a DWC was for the rst time built outside
BASF. Regarding the fact that this was a tray column and that this
led to a wide acceptance of DWC, this also represents a milestone in
development of DWC technology. The credit for awakening public
awareness regarding industrial applicability of DWC goes to Becker
et al. from Linde AG and Sasol [66], describing design and construc-
tion of rst two tray DWCs of impressive dimensions (one is 100 m
tall tangent to tangent, with diameter of 5.2 m) installed in a Sasol
plant in RSA, with the purpose of recovery of valuable petrochem-
icals from Fischer-Tropsch synthesis products. Others joined soon,
and this resulted in a number of publications describing congura-
tions considered suitable and/or implemented for various rening
eld applications dominated traditionally by tray columns [6772].
Presently there are more than 100 DWCs in operation. Largest part
of packed DWCs has been built by J. Montz GmbH. However, both
Sulzer Chemtech and Koch-Glitsch are now active in this eld. Nec-
essary engineering know-how has been in the meantime developed
and implemented successfully by Linde AG, Uhde, and UOP. From
all what was reported from different sources it became obvious that
typical DWC applications allow approximately 30% energy saving
accompanied by an equivalent saving in capital costs when com-
pared to conventional two-columns-in-series congurations.
Since details related to specic industrial applications are usu-
ally not revealed in public, some idea on separations that could
bring some energy and capital advantages if carried out using a
DWC can be found in patent literature. As mentioned before, being
the pioneer in this eld, BASF is owner of largest number of DWC
related patents. However, during last ten years other companies
joined, UOP being a forerunner, and it looks that patenting in this
eld gains on momentum. A list of patents can be found in appendix,
containing also titles and short description of their relevant aspects.
The recent developments with wide implementation of DWC
conrm that we can now talk on a real technology breakthrough
in the eld of distillation technology. Indeed, a DWC incorporates
the requirements (energy saving accompanied by correspondingly
reduced CO2 emissions, compact equipment, space saving) of sus-
tainable process development, and, most importantly, a substantial
capital saving. Although present achievements are impressive and
signicant further developments with implementation of DWC can
be expected and are going to occur, DWC it is not a universal
solution. There are situations where Petlyuk column and some of
other heat coupling congurations will be more appropriate, as
elaborated in greater detail in a concise but quite comprehensive
overview of literature in a dedicated chapter of newest edition of
Perrys ChE Handbook [73]. This however can be conjectured from
thermodynamic, i.e. heat coupling considerations, and a recently
introduced simple method appeared to be quite effective in this
respect [74].
Much less information is available on physical implementation,
i.e. process design and mechanical design aspects and challenges
to arrive at optimal solutions, particularly those suitable for sepa-
564 I. Dejanovic et al. / Chemical Engineering and Processing 49 (2010) 559580
Fig. 7. A more operable Petlyuk arrangement.
ration of four or even more components in one shell. These as well
as specic applications related aspects are elaborated in greater
detail in patent literature. Therefore, to provide proper informa-
tion on the state of the art of DWC technology, this paper includes
both a review of open literature and a survey of relevant patents
(a complete list is given in Appendix A) published until the end of
2009.
3. Fully thermally coupled columns
As mentioned before, direct thermal coupling allows decrease
of the heat requirement of a distillation sequence, and maximum
gains can be expected from full thermal coupling, as encountered
in so called Petlyuk arrangement, where the heat ux from sin-
gle reboiler is utilized to perform separation in all of coupled
columns. Petlyuk et al. [15] arrived at this independently, based on
theoretical analysis of thermodynamically reversible distillation,
concluding that the basic sequence can be extended for separation
of any number of components, i.e.:
In each columns section only components with extreme volatil-
ities, i.e. lightest and heaviest components are taken as keys;
This results in n(n 1) sections required for separating an n-
component mixture, instead of 2(n 1) in the conventional
scheme;
One reboiler and one condenser are sufcient, independent of
number of products;
n pure products can be obtained.
Most of the work Petlyuk and co-workers have devoted over the
years to distillation theory and its application to arrive at optimal
design of columns and column congurations or sequences, which
was not readily available because it was described in publications
written mainly in Russian, can be found completely and consis-
tently presented in English in a recently published book by Petlyuk
[75]. Here the author recognizes contributions of some predeces-
sors in this eld, reminding us of the fact that, as often experienced
in the past, some discoveries or inventions occurred in parallel,
without knowing of each other.
Being thermodynamically equivalent to Petlyuk column, a DWC
can be considered as a single shell realization of Petlyuk column
shown in Fig. 2b. Another thermodynamical equivalent of the Pet-
lyuk column is the conguration shown in Fig. 7, which is called
in the above mentioned book more operable Petlyuk column.
According to Petlyuk [75], the advantage of this conguration, with
two physically separated thermally coupled columns, is that the
pressure of the second column, containing the reboiler can be held
at a slightly higher level than that of the rst column, which also
enables installing the valves on vapour retour lines to control the
split of vapour ows. One should note that this modication was
also considered by Kaibel [19] and is also mentioned in papers by
Becker et al. [66], and Agrawal and Fidkowski [52]. The latest refer-
ence describes the opposite option too, with rst column containing
the reboiler, kept at higher pressure delivering both vapour streams
to second column. However this one as well as more complex con-
gurations exploiting advantages of thermally coupled columns
operated at different pressures have been elaborated in a paper
by Kaibel et al. [76], which was written in German and there-
fore remained unnoticed to wide public. It is a pity because this
paper was one of earliest addressing in a technically sound way
thermodynamics based approach to synthesis of exergy saving sep-
aration congurations, including those involving azeotropes as well
as reactions.
In summary, fully thermally coupled columns/congurations/
arrangements require less energy than conventional counterparts,
because of providing operating conditions that avoid or minimize
entropy of mixing formation, which in case of conventional cong-
urations occurs, more or less pronounced, at the feed stage, the ends
of the columns, and due to remixing of internal ows. Additional
benets arise from the fact that only one reboiler and condenser
are involved, i.e. some liquid and vapour ows are used two times
(double-effect) in the sections above and bellow the point of with-
drawal of middle component.
However, a Petlyuk column is not always the best choice, i.e.
there are mixtures and conditions that may favour implementa-
tion of alternative congurations. Fidkowski and Krolikowski [20]
have compared several thermally coupled arrangements with con-
ventional direct and indirect arrangements. They approximated
energy requirements with the sum of vapour ow rates from all
reboilers. This assumption can be used only if same type of cool-
ing and heating medium is used in all condensers and reboilers.
They found that when only energy consumption is compared, Pet-
lyuk arrangement is the most favourable. Stichlmair and Stemmer
[26] analyzed energy requirements of two sharp and one sloppy
sequence for separation of a broad range of ternary feed composi-
tions. They plotted total heat requirement against feed composition
diagram and showed that, although it can reduce energy require-
ments up to 30%, thermal coupling is not always better than certain
conventional arrangements.
Although a fully thermally coupled system always has the low-
est minimum vapour ow, energetic optimum strongly depends
on the feed composition. Greater energy savings are achieved for
lower contents of middle boiling component in the feed, symmetric
distribution of high and low boiling components as well as rela-
tive volatilities. However larger differences in relative volatilities
between the components can be accounted for appropriately by
arranging the feed stage and the intermediate product withdrawal
stage at different heights [77,78].
First work that used exergy analysis as a tool for sequence rating
was reported by Agrawal and Fidkowski [18]. They presented a sys-
temic study of ve different congurations for ternary separation,
for a wide range of feed compositions and relative volatilities. Their
study included three thermally coupled congurations: column
with side stripper, side rectier and Petlyuk sequence, and modied
direct split and indirect split arrangement, in which columns are
connected with one vapour and one liquid stream. Study showed
limited range of feed composition values and relative volatility
ratios in which Petlyuk column is thermodynamically most ef-
cient, indicating that adding a side rectier or stripper, may turn
to be a practical solution for increasing both product purity and
energy efciency of three-product distillation columns.
Another study, by Rev et al. [25], compared 11 various distil-
lation arrangements, rst based on exergy analysis and then on
 I. Dejanovic et al. / Chemical Engineering and Processing 49 (2010) 559580
Fig. 8. Four-product DWC arrangements.
total annualized cost. Their study indicated that DWC is favoured
when relative volatilities of the feed components are balanced,
when there is small amount of middle boiler, balanced high and
low boiler, high energy to investment costs ratio (e.g. European
price structure) or slow depreciation rate. Hernandez-Gaona et al.
[23] employ exergy analysis approach to calculate efciencies for
several distillation sequences for separation of 3 and 4 components
mixtures.
Regarding the column conguration, dividing wall columns
can be classied into two major groups, the well established
and widely applied three-product column, and that including
four and more products columns, which further increase energy
and capital saving but are much more difcult to implement
practically.
3.1. Three products DWC
Regarding the internal conguration, i.e. positioning of the parti-
tion wall, there are three main types of DWC [77], i.e. those shown
schematically in Figs. 4 and 5a and b. The former has a partition
wall placed in the middle section of the column above and below
the feed and the side draw, and represents a good approximation
of a thermodynamically optimal distillation arrangement, as pro-
posed by Petlyuk et al. [15]. This conguration of DWC was rst
implemented in practice.
A simpler conguration is a DWC which has the dividing wall
placed either at the lower or the upper end of the column (Fig. 5a
and b). This type of dividing wall column is a practical one-shell
solution for a common situation, with a main column associated
with a side, rectifying or stripping only column. This congura-
tion enables investment savings, as the costs of a second column
shell are avoided. However, in contrast to columns with the divid-
ing wall in the middle section of the column, energy savings can
not be obtained. Also, temperature differences across the dividing
wall can be higher compared to columns with the dividing wall in
the middle section.
Generally, in cases with high temperature differences the
mechanical stresses exhibited on the construction should be
checked, e.g. by nite element calculations. In critical situations
insulation or replacing the partition wall by a non-welded wall
is advisable. This way the peak values of the mechanical stress
are drastically reduced. In general, if the temperature difference
between two sides of dividing wall is such that it could affect the
separation process, insulation of the dividing wall should be con-
565
sidered. Some provisions in this respect, as described in patent
literature are addressed later on.
The inuence of heat transfer across the wall on separation ef-
ciency was investigated by Lestak et al. [79] and Suphanit et al. [80].
Lestak et al. [79] used column grand composite curve (CGCC), or the
stage enthalpy decit prole, as an analysis tool. They found that
insulation in some parts of the wall can reduce energy consump-
tion, i.e. would make the distillation closer to the ideal reversible
process. Suphanit et al. [80] modied their concept by combining
the exergy loss analysis to derive a minimum driving force prole
(MDFP), in order to determine in which area of the wall the heat
transfer should be allowed.
3.2. Four products DWC
Potential benets of a DWC could become even larger if such a
column could be used for obtaining four or more pure products or
fractions from a feed containing respectively the same number or
more components. By arranging separation of a 4-component mix-
ture in a DWC effectively three conventional columns are replaced.
Obviously, this provides for much larger investment savings. This
type of column, shown schematically in Fig. 8a, was patented in
1984 and for the rst time described in open literature in 1987 by
G. Kaibel [18]. From this reason, this conguration is in literature
often referred to as Kaibel column, which may be considered as
a tting tribute to the inventor [65,92]. Published work on this and
other complex congurations is mainly theoretical. Christiansen
et al. [16] suggest a modication of the Kaibel column, which
includes a horizontal partition between the sections producing B
and C in Fig. 8b, allowing only energy integration, but avoiding re-
mixing effects. In principle, comparable, thermodynamically more
efcient column arrangements with a larger number of dividing
walls might be applied for multi-component feed streams. A fea-
sible conguration, based on an extended Petlyuk arrangement is
shown schematically in Fig. 8c.
G. Kaibel was the main driver behind design and installation
of rst 4-products DWC that is now for more than two years in
operation. Interestingly, his son B. Kaibel was involved with design
of this particular column as well as with design of many other
DWCs at Montz. According to schematic representation shown in
Fig. 9, reecting a more detailed drawing shown elsewhere [2],
this quite large and complex column (internal diameter 3.6 m and
height of 34 m) contains in total eight beds, six being separated
by ve non-welded partition walls, mainly in off-centre position.
566 I. Dejanovic et al. / Chemical Engineering and Processing 49 (2010) 559580
Fig. 9. Schematic illustration of internal conguration of an operating Kaibel col-
umn.
This conguration actually includes one long longitudinal partition
wall arrangement. Therefore it reduces the potential gain on energy
saving, because it allows entropy formation by partial mixing of
internal streams, that could be avoided in case of a congura-
tion with longitudinal partition walls placed in parallel, separating
the middle part of the column into effectively three columns in
parallel. This thermodynamically more benecial conguration,
shown schematically in Fig. 8c, has been considered in present case,
however less favourable conguration was chosen for practical
reasons.
This can be considered as a specic trade-off situation when
dealing with implementation of a DWC. Constructional simplicity
means acceptance of certain degree of thermodynamic efciency
loss, i.e. a reduced energy saving, which however is accompanied
by a maximized gain on capital saving side. Certainly, obtaining
ve products in one DWC will require implementation of paral-
lel partition walls, which however requires making a further step
towards developing the necessary process and mechanical design
know-how.
Some other interesting concepts for separation of 4 component
mixtures in which additional entropy formation could be avoided
can be found in papers by Christiansen et al. [81], and Agrawal [82].
Apart from Petlyuk column, various thermodynamically equiv-
alent arrangements for separation of more than 3 components can
be synthesized, which could show better control properties. Such
arrangements were analyzed in papers by Agrawal and Agrawal
and Fidkowski [9,51,52,8284], and Rong et al. [8588], who also
provided a systematic method for their synthesis. All of these
arrangements can be constructed in a single shell as a DWC. How-
ever, potential applications may be limited, as the number of
theoretical stages increases with additional components and the
temperature difference between the reboiler and the condenser
may reach impractically high values.
Fig. 10. Three-product DWC design parameters.
4. DWC design approaches
Lack of a proven, straightforward design method was the main
reason for slow acceptance of DWC by process industry. Design
methods that are presented in the following section concern mostly
ternary separations. However they can be extended to cover cases
with more components.
When designing a DWC system for separation of a three
component feed into three products the number of degrees of
freedom, i.e. design parameters increases signicantly compared
to that required in case of design of conventional two columns-
in-series congurations, where two columns can be optimized
independently of each other. As shown in Fig. 10, for performance
simulation of a 3-component/product separation, required param-
eters are: number of stages in 6 different sections, vapour split ratio,
liquid split ratio, reux ratio, heat input in the reboiler, and the side
product ow rate.
The initial steps are the same as in conventional column design:
selecting column conguration and operating pressure, in con-
junction with an appropriate vapourliquid equilibrium predictive
model. Next steps, establishing initial conguration, approximate
(short-cut) or detailed design, i.e. stage and reux requirement cal-
culation, optimization, dimensioning and control system design
differ considerably and will be separately dealt with in next sec-
tions.
4.1. Setting-up a DWC performance calculation/simulation
As mentioned above, and illustrated schematically in Fig. 10,
a DWC represents a complex internal structure, with additional
design parameters to be considered, which however are not read-
ily available. These however require good initial values and some
guidance to ensure convergence. For beginners, following list of
heuristics, as proposed by Becker et al. [66], provides good initial
estimates for both short-cut and detailed simulation:
 I. Dejanovic et al. / Chemical Engineering and Processing 49 (2010) 559580
1. Design a conventional two column system as a base case;
2. Take the total numbers of stages for DWC as 80% of total
stage requirement of conventional two-column sequence, i.e.:
0.8(N1 + N2 );
3. Place the partition in the middle third of the column;
4. Set the internal ow in the column, as determined by the reboiler
or condenser duty, at 70% of the total duties of two conventional
columns;
5. Use equalized vapour and liquid splits.
However, this is enough just to have a good start, and chosen
simulation approaches require a lot of tuning (tweaking) in order
to achieve optimal design.
Carrying out DWC performance simulations requires certain
experience, and these are more or less computationally very
demanding, depending on chosen approach, i.e. short-cut or
detailed, and the latter also on the conguration chosen to rep-
resent a DWC. It should be noted that well established commercial
software packages, such as CHEMCAD, ASPEN PLUS or HYSYS, still
do not incorporate DWC as a standard model. Instead, it has to be
arranged as a sequence of simple columns.
4.2. Approximate design methods
Triantafyllou and Smith [29], published a rst design-oriented
short-cut method for a 3-product DWC based on so called Fenske-
Underwood-Gilliland-Kirkbride model (FUGK), a well known
combination of individual models to establish the minimum num-
ber of equilibrium stages (Fenske), minimum reux (Underwood),
stage requirement at chosen operating reux ratio (Gilliland), and
the feed stage (Kirkbride) for a given separation. Basic assump-
tions of this model area are constant relative volatility and constant
molar ows.
They approximated DWC conguration with a three column
model (sloppy sequence shown in Fig. 1c). Prefractionator section is
modelled as a column with partial condenser and a partial reboiler
in which sloppy (non-sharp) separation takes place. Assuming
vapour and liquid are in equilibrium in condenser and reboiler of
the prefractionator column, compositions of coupling streams are
calculated by performing simple ash calculations. Top and bot-
toms column are modelled as a side stream colum, and are linked
by equalizing vapour trafc at the bottom of top column and the
top of bottom column, respectively.
The reux ratio of prefractionator is adjusted until its number of
plates equals the sum of number of plates below feed plate in top
column and above feed in bottom column. The recoveries in the
prefractionator column are then optimized by a simple procedure
proposed by authors to achieve either of the two, for a given reux
ratio: to minimize vapour ow (i.e. minimum energy use), or to
minimize number of plates (i.e. investment cost). Reux ratios of
main column and prefractionator are then optimized to minimize
total cost. Similar short-cut method was used by Muralikrishna et
al. [34], who proposed a useful visualization tool to represent all
feasible designs on a single plot, which can be also utilized for a
simple optimization procedure.
Amminudin and Smith [33] and Amminudin et al. [32] pointed
out that use of Kirkrbride equation, to nd thermal coupling loca-
tions can lead to errors when transferred to rigororus simulation.
They proposed a semi-rigorous design method based on equilib-
rium stage composition concept, previously applied for synthesis
of azeotropic distillation sequences [32]. Their design procedure
starts from dened products composition, and works backward to
determine design parameters to achieve them. The authors pro-
posed a procedure to determine feasible product distribution, based
on work by Van Dongen and Doherty [89]. This and other similar
procedures for product feasibility determination can be extended
567
to more than 3 components separation, providing the mixture
shows ideal behaviour, i.e. the volatility order does not change with
compositions. The authors claim that their method provides less
inaccurate base-case design than the standard FUGK based short-
cut methods. However, their method is somewhat computationally
more demanding, and the literature survey has shown that the
method initially developed by Triantafyllou and Smith is preferred
because of its simplicity [36].
Sotudeh and Shahraki [37] proposed a method based on Under-
wood equations only, because they consider the use of Fenske
equation for minimum number of stages inadequate for applica-
tion in DWC design. This is due to the fact that Fenske equation
is based on assumption of equal compositions of liquid and vapour
streams at top and bottom of prefractionator, which, in case of DWC
is clearly not the case. According to the case study presented in
their paper, this method provided a more economical DWC design
compared to the method of Muralikrishna et al. [34].
4.2.1. Vmin -diagram method
An interesting, rather simplistic but surprisingly effective
approach to the conceptual design of DWCs has been introduced
by Halvorsen in his thesis [74], as well as subsequent papers by
Halvorsen and Skogestad [21,9093]. They propose the use of a
minimum vapour ow, or so called Vmin diagram method, which
is a graphical visualization of minimum energy, represented by
normalized vapour ow, as a function of the feed distribution.
The method is based on Underwoods equations. The assumptions
used are constant molar ows, innite number of stages, and con-
stant relative volatilities, which means the method is applicable
to zeotropic mixtures only. However, striking is the simplicity and
effectiveness of Halvorsens method. Needed input parameters are
feed composition, feed quality expressed by the liquid fraction, K-
values and desired product purities or recoveries. The Underwood
equations are then used to determine minimum vapour ows,
needed for separation of any combination of feed constituents
pairs, to any achievable degree of purity.
From Vmin diagram it is plain to see the vapour and liquid trafc
needed in every column section, which can directly serve as basis
for the column design. Also, the minimum theoretical energy, rep-
resented by vapour ow, needed for the separation can trivially be
seen, as the highest peak on the diagram. This means that, due to
full thermal coupling, the total amount of energy needed for the
separation is in fact the same amount needed to perform the most
difcult binary separation in the feed. The number of stages can
be preliminary determined as a two times the minimum number,
determined using Fenske equation. From our experience, we can
say that this method provides an excellent visual tool, which can
provide good initial parameters for rigorous design in a simple and
straightforward manner, regardless of number of components or
column conguration. It also provides the designer with a theoret-
ical minimum of boil-up ratio, which can be a good indication for
optimality of the design, without using rigorous optimization rou-
tines. However, since it is based on Underwood equations, (innite
number of stages), the issue of scaling the design down, i.e. deter-
mining the optimal trade-off between reux ratio and number of
stages still remains.
With some skill, Halvorsens method can be easily implemented
in Matlab or even in Excel, and be used as an expert system for
identication of energy saving potential and fast screening of alter-
native congurations for implementation of full thermal coupling
in given case. Also, as suggested by Halvorsen [91], the Vmin dia-
gram can easily be constructed by a series of short-cut or (preferred)
rigorous binary distillation calculations using commercial process
simulators.
The Underwood equations have also been used by Fidkowski
and Agrawal to develop a method and algorithm for calculating
568 I. Dejanovic et al. / Chemical Engineering and Processing 49 (2010) 559580
Fig. 11. Pump-around DWC model.
minimum vapour ow in quaternary fully coupled system, which
could be extended to systems with more than four components
[94].
4.3. Detailed simulation of a 3-product DWC
Final design of a DWC should be based on results obtained by
rigorous steady-state simulations carried out by employing one of
well established stage-by-stage models to simultaneously pro-
vide necessary parameters and a detailed performance simulation
of a DWC system. Carrying out DWC performance simulations
requires great experience and these are more or less computa-
tionally very demanding. As mentioned before, well established
commercial software packages still do not contain a DWC as a stan-
dard model. This however will occur sooner or later, most probably
as a simultaneous, equation based model. Presently, the congura-
tion of a DWC has to be arranged as a sequence of simple columns.
As illustrated in what follows, there are several ways of bending
a process simulator into simulating a DWC, each with its good and
bad sides.
4.3.1. Pump around model
As shown schematically in Fig. 11, a 3 component3 products
DWC can be represented as a single column in which various sec-
tions of DWC are situated vertically above one another. Vapour and
liquid trafc within the model are regulated using liquid pump-
around streams and vapour bypasses in such way as to imitate
DWC. It is computationally simpler and easier to initiate com-
pared to other arrangements, because it involves simulation of only
one column. However it is reported that it can lead to conver-
gence problems because in two points of the column entire vapour
and liquid are drawn off, and none remains to ow to the next
tray [66].
4.3.2. Two columns sequence model
There are several two-column sequences, which are thermo-
dynamically equivalent to a DWC, such as for instance sequences
shown in Figs. 2b and 7. Two-column congurations are gener-
ally easier to set-up and offer a bit more exibility than the pump
around model. There is virtually no difference in convergence time
or results obtained by various 2 column congurations. Sequence
shown in Fig. 2b is usually the preferred choice simply because it
represents the real-life prefractionator/main column sequence, and
the results are more easily inspected.
When initializing such sequences, we have found that following
procedure works best:
1. Specify coupling streams compositions and ows from prefrac-
tionator to main column in the following way:
(a) Set vapour stream composition using feed stream composi-
tion with all impurities (heavy key and heavier components)
ows set to zero. Keeping same composition, set total ow
as determined by short-cut model. Set temperature as dew-
point temperature at the governing pressure;
(b) Set liquid stream composition using feed stream composi-
tion with all impurities (light key and lighter components)
ows set to zero. Keeping same composition, set total ow as
determined by short-cut model. Set temperature as boiling-
point temperature at the governing pressure;
2. Run main column once alone, using boil-up ratio calculated by
short-cut method for reboiler specication, and highest reux
ratio from the direct sequence for condenser specication;
3. Run prefractionator column once alone;
4. Using these converged proles and coupling streams compo-
sitions, run the entire sequence, setting desired distillate and
bottom product purities for condenser and reboiler specica-
tions respectively.
A downside of all multi-column sequences compared to pump-
around model is that overall product recoveries can not be used
for condenser and reboiler specications, because coupling streams
also count as feed streams, and are used for recovery calculation.
4.3.3. Four columns sequence model
This model shown schematically in Fig. 12 reects actual situa-
tion best, but is most difcult to initialize, because initial estimates
of more interconnecting streams are required, and is the slow-
est to converge. General initialization procedure is similar to one
described for two column models and will not be described in
greater detail here.
This conguration however, allows for maximum exibility
regarding specications for different column sections, and vapour
and liquid splits. Therefore it is considered to be the most suitable
conguration for dynamic simulations [103].
4.3.4. Simultaneous models
Equation based models which enable simultaneous owsheet
solving compared to sequential approach of commercial process
simulators would most probably provide better convergence prop-
erties and speed. Such approach based on a 3 column model similar
to model used for shortcut calculation, which is simultaneously
solved by matrix inversion is mentioned in a paper by G. Kaibel et
al. [78]. The authors stated that it has shown much better conver-
gence properties than usual sequential models. Similar experiences
were reported by Becker et al. [66].
4.4. Detailed simulation of a 4-product DWC
Single longitudinal partition wall congurations of a 4-product
DWC, shown schematically in Figs. 8a and 9, respectively, can
 I. Dejanovic et al. / Chemical Engineering and Processing 49 (2010) 559580
Fig. 12. Four-column DWC model.
be simulated as a single pump-around column, three columns
sequence or four columns sequence, with same considerations and
procedures as described for 3-product DWCs in previous section.
Only difference is two additional degrees of freedom (second side
product ow and number of stages between two side products),
which make this model somewhat more difcult to converge. The
conguration shown in Fig. 8b, introduced by Christiansen et al.
[16], can be simulated as a sloppy three column sequence (see
Fig. 1c), because there is only heat integration between bottom and
top part of main column.
Most complex conguration, separating the middle part of a
DWC into three parallel sections, shown in Fig. 8c, is usually referred
to as a fully extended Petlyuk sequence However, in this case a
three column (in parallel) model as shown in Fig. 13 appeared to
be the most appropriate choice, but still difcult to handle. For ini-
tial composition and ow estimates of 12 coupling streams similar
procedure can be used as described for 3-product sequence.
4.5. Optimization methods
A common difculty associated with detailed simulation is
related to estimation of the number of stages in each section. Since
number of stages is an integer variable, column optimization falls
into a class of mixed integer non-linear programming problems
(MINLP). This can not be done within commercially available pro-
cess simulators. To overcome this, usually an external optimization
routine is required, coupled with process simulators capabilities.
One rigorous design method was proposed by Dnnebier and
Pantelides [30]. Their approach is based on the models of detailed
column superstructures for a given separation task, followed
by mathematical optimization procedure. The tools used were
local optimization codeCONOPT, coupled with gPROMS process
modelling tool. Their method can simultaneously provide design
parameters determination and performance simulation. However
as authors themselves claim, the problem could not be solved to
569
Fig. 13. Flow-chart of the conguration used to simulate the performance of a 4-
product DWC with multiple partition walls.
global optimality. Instead the proposed superstructures were used
only as a mean to generate a number of promising candidate struc-
tures, which were then optimized with xed structure.
In the paper by Wenzel and Rhm [36] a method of simultaneous
design and optimization using external optimization routine based
is presented. The authors say that the steady-state design of a DWC
is the only remaining difculty that lies in the way of its wider
acceptance. They used Aspen Plus software in conjunction with an
external optimization routine based on an evolutionary algorithm
to minimize total annualized costs.
For a broader overview of application of mathematical pro-
gramming methods to distillation system design, we recommend
a review work by Grossmann et al. [11].
4.6. Dimensioning
Dividing wall columns can be equipped with trays, random or
structured packing, same as conventional columns, but peculiar-
ities, i.e. related essential details associated with dimensioning
of these columns are not described in open literature. In a 2002
overview paper on DWC technology [95], Shah suggests use of siz-
ing and costing procedures as employed in Aspen software package
for conventional columns. This was done most recently also by
Errico et al. [96]. Another most recent paper describing the use of
a commercial process simulator for the 3 product DWC design is
that by Rangaiah et al. [97]. Authors consider the separated sec-
tions as parallel cylindrical columns with given cross sectional
area, which are further dimensioned as regular columns and cap-
ital costs determined accordingly using published correlations, to
allow generation of total annualized costs as basis for comparisons
of alternatives. This basically academic approach can provide a good
indication of potential benets. The actual know-how is currently
not in public domain; it belongs to proprietary knowledge of a few
companies that have successfully implemented DWCs in practice.
The basis for dimensioning is a converged column prole
obtained by detailed column steady-state simulation. This effec-
tively means that liquid and vapour ows and properties are known
for every column stage. In conventional column design, the dimen-
sioning has to ensure stable column performance with regards to
liquid and vapour loads. In DWCs, dimensioning has one additional
purpose, and that is to ensure desired vapour split across the wall.
Unlike liquid split, which can be set precisely by an external device,
vapour split ratio is self-adjusting, i.e. it depends on the amount of
ow resistance imposed by chosen column internals in conjunction
570 I. Dejanovic et al. / Chemical Engineering and Processing 49 (2010) 559580
with given liquid load, and corresponds to that needed to obtain
same pressure drop on both sides of the partition wall.
For structured packing columns a good indication of mass trans-
fer efciency and pressure drop can be obtained using so called
Delft-model, proposed by Olujic et al. [98]. Most distinctive feature
of this model is that it does not require any packing specic empir-
ical parameter, just accurate dimensions of corrugated sheets used
to build a packing element. This allows maximum exibility regard-
ing the variations in specic geometric area, corrugation inclination
angle, as well as bends at lower or both ends as encountered in
high performance structured packings. This is important because it
allows choices to be done to arrange packed beds bed on opposite
sides of the partition wall to ensure in conjunction with xed liq-
uid splits the proper pressure drop (equal on both sides), i.e. proper
split of vapour ows to occur immediately below the partition wall.
Not to forget, in demanding separations requiring installation
of multiple beds the quantity of installed liquid collectors and dis-
tributors can be substantial, contributing signicantly to columns
pressure drop. This however can be predicted with condence
using a simple method proposed recently by Rix and Olujic [99].
A particular feature of this method, of importance for design of
packed DWCs, is the possibility of tuning the pressure drop of the
liquid redistribution sections. Namely this method allows estab-
lishing the free area that will generate desired amount of pressure
drop, as a means of ensuring the required vapour ow in sections
separated by the partition wall.
In absence of a dedicated method for tray columns, the best
approach is to make preliminary hydraulic design of a DWC as
a combination of several sieve tray columns, utilizing a well
proven method elaborated in detail in the book by Stichlmair and
Fair [5].
Earlier DWC designs were limited because the wall had to be
placed in the middle, dividing the column into two sections of equal
cross section size and shape. This was due to the wall being welded
to the shell, and placing it in the middle was required to minimize
mechanical stress. However, a dedicated research effort conducted
jointly by TU Delft and J. Montz in mid 1990s, using a large scale col-
umn hydraulics simulator, has shown that the partition wall does
not need to be welded, because a fast equalization of pressures on
two sides of the partition wall minimizes occurrence and durabil-
ity of mechanical leaks of both phases from one side to the other.
Certainly, a pronounced temperature gradient across the partition
wall could induce a vapour leakage by natural convection, which
however can be avoided by adopting adequate practical provisions
for this purpose described later on in subsection on constructional
aspects. This has been recognized as an important breakthrough in
DWC technology [100], because of several reasons. First reason is
that it allows easy revamps of existing columns, with less installa-
tion time and less investment costs. Secondly, the ability to place
the wall off-centre extended the range of applications with respect
to composition, relative volatilities and thermodynamic condition
of three component mixture feeds.
This has been implemented with success in many columns
equipped with structured packings. A patent by Kaibel at el. [US
7,090,748] describes use of disposed, i.e. off-centre partition walls
to allow accommodation of partially vaporised feeds and side draw-
offs. These and other unusual congurations, like positioning the
feed stage and the side draw at different heights, which accounts
for larger differences in relative volatilities of the feed components
as well as off-centre positions of the dividing wall, to handle differ-
ent loads of DWC sections, have already been realized in industrial
practice [77,100]. For instance, an energy efcient removal of small
amounts (less than 2%) of a medium-boiling fraction from a liquid
mixture required earlier a main column fully thermally coupled
with a small side column [US 4,994,152]. With a non-welded wall
this can easily be arranged in a DWC.
Finally, adopting non-welded wall enables installation of mul-
tiple walls, which effectively means placing more conventional
columns into one shell. So far, according to B. Kaibel et al. [100],
this has greatly improved the area of packed DWC application, and
is expected to be also widely used in tray applications.
With this in mind, each section can be sized using commercially
available software, for the particular liquid and vapour loads. In this
way an equivalent cylindrical cross section area needed to accom-
modate required vapour and liquid loads, can be easily calculated.
The walls latitudinal position is then set in such way that each col-
umn section has an equivalent cross-section area to that calculated
by individual sizing.
The height of the partition wall, i.e. the corresponding number
of stages, which can differ on two sides of the wall, is an additional
design concern. Namely extending wall to include more stages may
help in one respect but will certainly be at the cost of a shift in
composition on other side that may become detrimental to overall
performance.
4.7. Controllability and operability
Another main reason for slow acceptance of dividing wall
columns by the process industry was the fear of expected control
related problems. Substantial work was done in this area and large
number of papers published, addressing mainly three component
and products separation problems.
A conventional direct sequence for 3 components feed separa-
tion, shown in Fig. 1a, has four main manipulated variables [57],
which are heat input to the reboiler and reux ratio of each indi-
vidual column. Wolf and Skogestad [48] describe 3 components
Petlyuk column control. They nd that 3-components case poses no
control problems. Halvorsen and Skogestad [46] report that DWC
has ve manipulated variables: boil up (heat input), reux ratio,
side product rate, vapour and liquid split. However, vapour split
ratio is practically pre-determined in the dimensioning stage and
it is self adjusting, so it can not be utilized as a manipulated variable.
Liquid split ratio can be manipulated by an external device, or it can
also be xed in the design stage. To summarize this, the DWC can
have 4 or 3 degrees of freedom, e.g. 4 or 3 manipulated variables.
The problem is the much stronger interaction of manipulated and
control variables.
Early work was focused on optimal feed back control, using PI
controllers. It is the simplest method, which requires least effort
and is a usual rst choice, providing it gives adequate control
performance. Halvorsen and Skogestad [46], focused on feedback
control of DWCs. They identied 5 degrees of freedom (DF), men-
tioned before, and three controlled variablespurities of distillate,
side and bottom product. Since three DFs are enough to manipu-
late three controlled variables (process set points), two additional
DFs can be used for minimizing operating cost, which they approx-
imated by boil-up rate. For their research, they used dynamic tray
model with simplifying assumptions of constant pressure, constant
relative volatilities, constant molar ows, constant tray efciency
and no heat transfer across the wall. Vapour and liquid split ratios
are used to optimize operating costs.
Mutalib and Smith [49] and Mutalib et al. [50] introduced
degrees of freedom (DF) analysis to asses the complexity of DWC
control and investigated the impact of vapour and liquid split ratios
on column operation and control based on dynamic simulation. In
second part of their work, the authors discussed conducted pilot
plant studies.
It can be concluded that DWCs can be successfully operated
using PI controllers. However, Adrian et al. [57] relying on practi-
cal experiences as acquired with numerous DWC implementations
within BASF claim that poor control behaviour of classical strategies
requires some energy-saving opportunities to be neglected in order
 I. Dejanovic et al. / Chemical Engineering and Processing 49 (2010) 559580
to ensure stable operation. They propose a feed forward, model pre-
dictive control to overcome this problem. Wang and Wong [101]
also stress the necessity of a trade-off between energy efciency
and controllability, and propose a composition plus temperature
cascade scheme to stabilize the high efciency operation in case
of a feed containing ethanol, n-propanol, and n-butanol, with vari-
ations in composition, to be separated into high purity products
(all three components with a purity of 99.9 mol%). Wang et al.
[102] discuss control strategy which appeared to be suitable for
control of a complex acetic acid dehydration system combining a
heterogeneous azeotropic distillation column and a dividing wall
column, i.e. a fully thermally coupled column. DWC receives aque-
ous phase from the decanter, and separates it into pure water and
a methyl acetate rich product streams, while the rather small side
draw stream containing water and isobutytlacetate is recycled to
the decanter.
Most recent contribution, by Ling and Luyben [103], gives an
excellent review of the published work on DWC control issues.
The authors claim that the available literature on the subject
offers conicting and inconsistent conclusions. They propose a
control structure that is capable of simultaneously controlling all
three products compositions and minimizing energy consumption.
However, the question is whether this is possible. Further work
and publications will hopefully contribute to increasing the process
control knowledge, because more complex DWC congurations
present a challenge in this respect.
Regarding physical control of operation, Van Zile et al. of UOP
[US 6,551,465] claim a ratio controller which divides liquid ow-
ing into each of separated sections. The ow rate of reux is set
by monitoring the temperature in the top of the product side and
the side-cut product draw rate is set by monitoring a temperature
in the bottom of the product side of a DWC. Another UOP patent
by Stacey [US 6,558,515] concerns regulating the vapour split, i.e.
vapour ow rates on each side of the partition wall by monitoring
the liquid level at the top tray of each separated section, which in
turn is controlled by measuring the pressure differential across the
tray in each section and varying the ow of liquid to the tray in
response to the differential. Kister and Stupin [US 2006/0137967]
propose monitoring the concentration of key component by a dif-
ferential vapour pressure cell placed a level bellow the point where
the feed enters the column. Measurements of concentration at spe-
cic points in each section separated by partition wall by direct or
indirect measuring techniques, to create necessary control inter-
face has been proposed much earlier by Kaibel and Stroezel [EP 0
780 147]. In this respect, interesting to mention is the patent by
Tung [US 6,347,533], proposing mechanical means to be arranged
to allow vapour and liquid to bypass internally or externally, so
that a suitable mixing location, which offers better thermodynamic
efciency, can be used.
5. Constructional aspects
Dividing wall columns can be equipped with trays as well
as with random or structured packing including all auxiliary
equipment. Technically, there is no difference to conventional
columns, provided the internals designed for a DWC comply with
increased process and mechanical design requirements. Regarding
the column dimensions, the diameters of industrial dividing wall
columns equipped with structured packings cover a wide range
from 0.3 m to above 4 m, while the diameters of tray columns
are larger, the largest of an installed column being well above
6 m.
Tray columns are easier to deal with, due to their robust con-
struction. The dividing wall can be used to increase the mechanical
strength of the construction. For instance, both Sasol columns con-
571
tain two-pass sieve trays with ow paths in parallel to partition
wall, while the tray rings ensure additional mechanical stiffening
of the partition wall [66]. Importantly, by shortening (halving) the
distances between opposite walls the dimensions of support beams
of the trays can be kept smaller.
If separation of wide boiling mixtures is considered, than the
temperature difference across the wall may become a serious con-
cern, i.e. a proper insulation may be essential to maintain desired
separation efciency and ensure proper functioning of DWC. An
effective remedy for large temperature gradient in packed columns,
which can have opposite directions in upper and lower section due
to composition changes imposed by separation, is a partition wall
made of two metal sheets separated by a gas space in between,
as recommended in a patent by Kaibel et al. [US 5,785,819]. This
insulating partition wall can be sealed (preferred) or ushed with
an inert gas. For trayed columns a similar, but simpler solution is
thought. As documented in a UOP patent by Stacey [US 6,645,350],
a separate vertical separation isolation wall is placed at a short
distance from the partition wall to thermally isolate downcomers
from the partition wall, including downcomers on both sides of the
wall. The same invention is documented in an international patent
application [WO 2005/046831].
Radial-crossow trays for a DWC, with one downcomer placed
centrally and two downcomers placed adjacent to partition wall,
with liquid owing over two oppositely oriented active areas on
each subsequent tray alternatively towards and from the parti-
tion wall, is an invention documented in an Air Products patent
by Kovak [US 7,234,691]. An uncommon feature is part of a patent
by Agrawal [US 6,250,106], introducing a horizontal partition wall
in addition to vertical one in central zone of the column, which
allows obtaining of two side products, a bottom product from upper
column and an overhead product from the lower column. In this
way three columns are effectively placed within one shell, and two
columns placed above each other on side draw side and separated
by horizontal partition wall, each provided with own reboiler and
condenser, respectively. The purpose is general, and column can
be equipped with trays and/or packings. Another patent from this
company, by Zone et al. [US 7,357,378], includes a partition wall
strengthened by stiffening members and/or double wall design to
better withstand pressure and minimize effects of temperature dif-
ferentials. When structured packing is used as internal, then placing
the stiffening members and packing layers can be arranged to min-
imize interference.
In any case, the welding procedure represents the most critical
fabrication step, particularly when structured packings are consid-
ered, because the partition wall must remain absolutely at. Also,
a DWC with welded wall implies two half-cylindrical columns of
equal cross sectional area, in case of unequal loads one side will
always be over-dimensioned, i.e. operating at a vapour load below
optimum. This means less capital saving than in case of having
proper cross section area on both sides of the partition wall. As
mentioned before, use of a non-welded wall solves this problem at
its source in most appropriate way.
Introduction of partially vaporised feeds or overheated liquid
feeds requires special provisions to be done to allow separation and
subsequent smooth delivery of vapour and liquid to the beds above
and below, respectively. Jansen et al. of Montz [US 5,580,425] have
designed an effective liquid ashing box containing a demister at
vapour outlet side that can be xed on the partition wall opposite
to the inlet of column feed.
A packed DWC, by virtue of its conguration, contains rela-
tively much more wall area than conventional column. Therefore,
bypassing of both the liquid and the vapour, which is detrimental to
efciency, is a serious design concern. First of all, direct contact of
packing elements with the column walls should be avoided to pre-
vent excessive wall ow of liquid, which is usually accounted for by
572 I. Dejanovic et al. / Chemical Engineering and Processing 49 (2010) 559580

providing the packing with effective wall wipers. This is a must, par-
ticularly in case of poor column diameter tolerances (pronounced
unevenness). This means that the wipers need to be long and strong
enough and care needs to be taken to adjust them properly during
installation.
Interesting in this respect is a proposal by G. Kaibel [US
5,897,748] concerning prevention of bypassing of both vapour and
liquid along the walls. The latter can be affected by proper layout
of the liquid distributor, i.e. by adjusting the density of irriga-
tion points in the wall zone to prevent excessive liquid bypassing.
In other words this proposal suggests non-uniform initial distri-
bution to effect uniform liquid distribution within the packing.
More demanding measures to control of liquid ow and indirectly
the vapour ow in the wall zone are that including provisions
for adding the heat (via external heaters) to effect evaporation of
liquid lm. Proposal considering building jacketed DWC to avoid
excessive bypassing tells us clearly that this was a serious prob-
lem experienced during rst applications of DWC for high purity
separations.
Regarding wall wipers, additional features are incorporated
according to a recent Montz patent [US 6,770,173] by providing
packing elements adjacent to partition wall with heavy-duty wall
wipers, which in addition to their primary function, scrapping of
liquid from the wall and bringing it into ow channels, ensure
also self-xing the wall assembled of proprietary, manhole (man-
way) large segments. These can be manufactured from thin metal
sheets (down to 1.5 mm) and are provided with plug and clamp
connectors, which makes installation fast and easy. The same is
with dismantling the wall in case of a need as may be required
Fig. 14. Detailed drawings of a tray support assembly, for a tray DWC employing
during troubleshooting. In general, fewer manholes are required. non-welded partition walls.
Most importantly, revamping conventional columns became sim-
pler, faster, and much cheaper.
Similar, spring like structure has been elaborated also in a BASF On the other hand, the rst DWC for obtaining four pure prod-
patent [US 5,914,012], and to avoid escape of any of phases to other ucts under high vacuum [2], confronted designers and constructors
side of the partition wall, which could compromise separations with additional challenges, particularly those related to initial dis-
with ppm and certainly those with a ppb purity requirement, tribution of liquid at exceptionally low load (0.1 m3 m-2 h-1 ), in
ends of partition wall can be provided with elastic elements which conjunction with rather low bed heights of gauze type structured
press against the column walls, but can have certain amount of packing. This was successfully solved by adopting two stages liquid
deformation without doing any damage to column or packing [US distribution, with rst stage including a narrow trough distributor
6,958,111]. In summary, in case of packed DWCs it is essential to equipped with drip tubes ending in a proprietary design second
have a good working system of wall wipers and to adjust them stage narrow trough distributor provided with equidistantly, but
properly during installation. densely arranged capillary spider legs placed along both sides of
Indeed, exibility provided by non-welded wall enabled tailor each trough. In total eight distributors have been installed using
made approach to assembling dividing wall columns, to meet spe- necessary provisions xed to the column walls by welding. Never-
cial process requirements. Even more, the non-welded wall makes theless, the extent of welding associated with installation of DWCs
feasible building dividing wall columns for the separation of four with non-welded partition walls is minimized, however layout of
and more component mixtures into four or more pure products. welded support points is somewhat demanding, but this can be
However, as mentioned before, the rst column designed for this easily repaired, if necessary during installation of internals.
purpose employs one partition wall with different position in upper In summary, use of non-welded wall, as experienced in numer-
and lower section, which is thermodynamically less efcient than ous applications with packed columns, allows a great degree of
a complex, multiple partition wall conguration, similar to that exibility on process side, with respect to composition and ther-
shown in Fig. 8c. Comparison of Fig. 8a and c indicates a doubled modynamic condition of the feed as well as internal ows and the
number of packed beds required in complex conguration, which relative volatilities of components involved. With time, mechan-
means also additional space for necessary liquid redistribution sec- ical design and installation have reached a stage in which costs
tions, need of assembling at least three separate partition walls in associated with manufacture and installation of rather complex
different locations, which introduces also installation related chal- internal structures are approximately 1.2 times that of a conven-
lenges, etc. Indeed the degree of complexity is much larger in this tional column, and the time needed for installation is roughly the
case and both process design and mechanical design as well as con- same.
struction methods need to be well established prior making an Similar benets are expected in case of tray columns. How-
attempt in this direction. First of all a reliable dimensioning pro- ever, a general characteristic of tray applications is that it concerns
cedure needs to be established to allow capital cost estimation, to columns with large diameters, as encountered in rening and
enable comparison of alternatives based on total annualised costs. petrochemical industries. Drawing shown in Fig. 14 illustrates basic
This is an interesting design related subject, not addressed so far non-welded wall arrangement for conventional cross ow trays [US
by academic community. As long as this is not done properly, the 7,287,747]. The tray rings are welded, however, the problems asso-
related know how will remain proprietary in nature, i.e. not in ciated with welding the partition wall and mechanical stresses are
public domain. eliminated. Detailed mechanical design has been elaborated for a
 I. Dejanovic et al. / Chemical Engineering and Processing 49 (2010) 559580
3 m diameter tray column, however this was not yet attempted in
practice [2,100].
6. Reported and patented applications
As mentioned before, at this moment there are well above 100
dividing wall columns in operation world wide. These are mainly
new designs, but revamping existing side-product columns will
increase accordingly with the time.
First DWCs were mostly used in nal distillations, where the
middle boiling component was the main product which had to be
separated from relatively smaller amounts of high and low boiling
components, at high purity [77]. Nowadays DWCs are not only used
for separation of a broad range of products, but also for hybrid pro-
cesses, such as extractive distillation, adsorptive separation and
reactive distillation.
Ennenbach et al. [67] report on development of DWCs at
Uhde GmbH, for the purposes of extractive distillation processes,
such as use for MORPHYLANETM , OCTENARTM and BUTENEXTM
processes. Kolbe and Wenzel [68] describe in greater detail the
MORPHYLANETM process for recovery of benzene from various
petrochemical cuts. Here, DWC is used to integrate an extractive
distillation and a stripper column. The process was successfully
veried by series of pilot-plant tests, and later in an industrial appli-
cation. They report 36% energy savings, 30% less equipment and 40%
less plot area.
Interestingly, in a patent describing a DWC for recovery of pure
aromatic fraction containing benzene, toluene and xylenes from
renery streams by extractive distillation [DE 101 35 585], Menzel
and Wenzel of Krupp Uhde introduce a highly complex inter-
nal conguration which in central section contains four partitions
walls placed in parallel, with two internal sections representing
actually a small DWC inside a large DWC. Namely, these are sepa-
rated from upper two sections by a cover, with overheads vapour
representing aromatics reach side draw product. This inner DWC
could be arranged in a cylindrical shell, which transforms this com-
plex conguration into a concentric or annular column, like those
encountered in patents related to internally heat integrated col-
umn (HIDiC) for air distilling [US 5,946,942] or general purposes
[US 2005/121303]. Dahl and Lenz of Hls AG [EP 0 806 406] propose
a DWC as suitable conguration for separation of dimethytereph-
thalat (DMT) from a mixture of raw esters produced by catalytic
oxidation of para-xylene and para-toluylacidmethylester (p-TE),
with the partition wall separating stripping section in two, with
side product take-off at lower section at product side.
Lockett et al. of Praxair Technology, Inc. [US 5,339,648] found a
DWC particularly useful for the purposes of cryogenic separation
of air, which according to their conguration allows withdrawal
of product streams at both sides of the centrally placed partition
wall. Another invention related to cryogenic air distillation is that
by Glatthaar et al. [US 2006/0005574] where a DWC main column
is thermally coupled with a side rectier used to recover argon of
required purity.
Heida et al. [69] of BASF describe the use of two DWCs in butadi-
ene extraction process. A DWC is considered as alternative to con-
ventional two columns in series conguration and the other inte-
grates a rectication column with an absorber (after-washer). They
performed successful pilot plant tests that conrmed on-site costs
savings of 10%, maintenance cost savings due to less equipment of
around 20%, and 16% decrease in energy consumption. As elabo-
rated in US patent 7,556,717, by Heida, the partition wall is placed
in upper part of the column, with two overhead product streams,
and one bottom stream leaving lower, combined or single section
of the column. The feed is at prefractionator side, and the selective
solvent is added at the top of the bed at one and/or both sides.
573
This is one of most recent in a series of application related BASF
patents, which became necessary to protect many already running
applications, at the moment that potential competitors started with
implementation of DWC, which was for more than 15 years an
exclusive eld of activity of this company. Similar situation was
with the position of Montz at DWC equipment design and con-
struction side.
A C4 and heavier olens recovery process developed at BASF
includes two DWCs [US 6,166,279]. Preparation of higher unsatu-
rated alcohols involving a DWC is subject of US patent 6,828,468,
by Ansmann et al. of BASF. Kaibel et al. [US 6,846,389] introduce a
train of DWCs used for separation of mixtures containing tetrahy-
drofuran, -butyrolactane and/or 1,4-butanediol. Wostbrock et al.
[US 7,001,490] describe a method for separation of crude ammo-
nia into three fractions using DWC or different congurations of
two thermally coupled columns. Both possibilities, i.e. a DWC or
a thermally coupled conguration of two columns is considered
by Sirch et al. [US 7,112,707], for isolation of trimethylopropane
from a reaction mixture. Bohner et al. [US 7,132,038] introduce a
process for obtaining pure 1,3-butadiene from crude 1,3-butadiene
using a DWC. Another BASF patent [US 7,132,538] by Lang et al.,
describes a process for purifying triethylenediamine, utilising a
DWC with partition wall in lower part of the column, delivering
two bottom product streams, a side draw product and overheads
leaving the upper section of the column are partially condensed,
delivering two product streams, which means that this particular
column delivers ve products. Kaibel et al. [US 7,169,267] describe
a method and equipment necessary for separation of C5+ cuts in
a DWC. Most recent patent application by Siegert et al. of BASF
[US 2007/0293688] considers possibility of coupling two DWCs
in series to enable removal of trioxane from a feed stream com-
prising in addition to trioxane also formaldehyde and water, with
side draw of rst DWC serving as feed of second DWC. Gall et al.
[US 7,329,330] describe a method and internal DWC congura-
tion required for recovery of 1,6-hexanediol, 1,5-pentanediol, and
caprolactone from a crude products feed stream. Knoesche et al. [US
7,342,134] describe a DWC used for recovery of toluylenediamine
from a feed comprising lower and higher boiling components.
Bassler et al. [US 7,527,712] introduce a DWC for continuous recov-
ery of solvent methanol as overhead product, which is used in
the synthesis of propylene oxide. Another BASF patent is that by
Peschel et al. [US 7,547,378], considering a DWC as an alternative
for a main column combined with a side stream rectier column for
purication of dimethylacetamide. Latest published international
patent application from BASF, by Genger et al. [WO 2009/092682],
concerns a DWC suitable for processing of raw product stream con-
taining cyclododecatriene and obtaining this component in high
purity, which can also be realized in a conguration consisting of
two thermally coupled columns.
Other large German chemicals manufacturer, BAYER, started
recently with employing DWC for separation of a mixture of iso-
meric diisocyanatodipheniylmethane, as proposed by Schal et al.
[EP 1 475 367], as well as for recovery and nal purication of
toluene diisocyanate from a crude feed containing less than 2% by
weight phosgene, with specic details elaborated in two patents, by
Grn et al. [US 7,108,770] and Brady et al. [7,118,653], respectively.
Impressive in this respect is recent inroad made by UOP into
the eld of DWC technology [70,71], documented in a rather large
number of patents, addressing applications in the rening and
petrochemicals industries which belong traditionally to the elds
of strong and long-lasting activity of this company.
First application at UOP was commercialized in 2002, for separa-
tion of linear alkyl-benzene. Type of DWC shown in Fig. 5a is used in
UOPs HyCycle UnicrackingTM process in which a DWC arrangement
is used for separation of a hydrocracking reaction by-product. Next,
they describe the use of DWC type shown in Fig. 5b, for integrat-
574 I. Dejanovic et al. / Chemical Engineering and Processing 49 (2010) 559580
ing three columns used to separate a reaction byproduct between
three reaction stages.
As a third example they describe an application, in which
a partitioned column substitutes two columns in a UOP Pacol
Enhancement Process (PEPTM adsorptive separation process) used
to remove C7+ aromatics from C7+ olen/parafn mixture. They
report energy savings of approximately 50% and capital savings of
approximately 1525%, compared to the two-column fractionation
sequence.
The UOP also considered the application of DWC for kerosene
prefractionation [71], in which a C11 C13 heart cut is removed
from a full-range kerosene (C7 C16 ). The modied DWC process
can achieve 28% savings in capital cost and 30% savings in energy
cost.
The above mentioned and other applications including a DWC
belong to proprietary knowledge of UOP, documented in US
patents: 6,395,950; 6,407,303; 6,479,720; 6,483,002; 6,540,907;
6,726,835; 6,927,314; 7,005,057; 7,267,746; and US 2008/0081937,
as well as in a European patent application [EP 1 205 460] and an
International (World) application [WO 03/051799].
Spencer and Plana Ruiz [72] describe an application of DWC for
solvent separation train in CEPSA renery in Algeciras, Spain, which
is also mentioned in a short overview on DWC technology pub-
lished by Parkinson in Chemical Engineering journal [104]. This
was reported before publication during one day Symposium on
Dividing Wall technology organised by Fluid Separation Group of
IChemE, held on September 23, 2004 at University College in Lon-
don [105]. On this occasion, also BP reported their experiences with
their rst implementation of this technology in the Coryton ren-
ery. Lee et al. [106] report a feasibility study of application of DWC
for fractionation in naphtha reforming plant.
According to a most recent patent application by VanNuland et
al. [US2009/0139852], EXXONMOBIL is joining, by introducing a
DWC suitable for processing a C5+ cut feed. A specic feature of this
invention is introduction of a second heat source for heating the
withdrawal part below the side draw-off. A particularly interesting
development is documented in a Kellog Brown & Root patent by
Stork [US 6,077,985], where a deethanizer and an ethylene splitter
are combined into a heat pump assisted DWC with bottom sec-
tion separated to allow removal of C3+ and recovery of ethane sent
as recycle back to the cracker, with ethylene as overhead product.
Ethylene vapours leaving the upper common section of the column
operated at a rather low operating pressure of 4 bar enter a com-
pressor and upon compression are condensed in the reboiler of the
ethylene/ethane side of the DWC. Regarding the level of sub-zero
temperatures involved, this is a cold-box distillation, however with
a nearly 50 C difference in temperatures on two sides of the wall.
Two patents, one by Gutermuth and Domes of Lurgi AG [US
6,884,324] and the other by Zimmermann and OBrien of UOP
[US 7,528,290], concern inventions for specic applications where
the partition wall extends from the top to the bottom, represent-
ing effectively two semi-cylindrical columns connected in parallel,
similar to that proposed in a patent by Seader [US 4,234,391]
concerning an internal heat integration (HIDiC) related invention.
Although these columns are fully separated, there is a certain
degree of integration. In former case, the overhead vapours of two
columns make a joint product stream, and the liquids in the sump
are connected. Condensers inside the top of each column provide
side products and feed for lower columns equipped with separate
reboilers. This one shell double column is intended for obtaining
pure phthalic anhydride, with low boiling impurities removed in
rst and high boiling impurities removed in second column. The
latter single-shell double column conguration is considered to be
suitable for separation of butane-1 from a mixed C4 feed. Each col-
umn is equipped with a reboiler and a condenser and the feed is
introduced in the rst column, while the top product of the rst col-
umn is feed for the second column, which delivers isobutene as top
product and 1-butene as bottom product, while the bottoms of rst
column contain 2-butene and n-butane. Similar, parallel columns
in one shell can be found in a Praxair patent by Billingham et al.
[US 5,836,174], used within a three column cryogenic distillation
conguration for producing oxygen of both low and high purity.
At the end of this section we would like to mention that also
in Far East countries, mainly in China, Japan and South Korea the
implementation of DWC is an ongoing activity, but the inventions
in this respect, which are documented in national patents are not
widely accessible, because of language barriers. From summaries
that can be found using patent search means available at inter-
net we can see, for instance that Chinese patent CN101028987
by Q.Z. Ye of China Petrochemical Corp. addresses separation of
propylene and propane by an extractive distillation process carried
out in a DWC. Patent by Z. Yi of Hunan Astar BioChemical Techn.
[CN 101417930] concerns use of DWC to separate and purify ethyl
vanillin, while the patent by L. Sun et al. from China Petroleum
University [CN 101298412] describes a reactive DWC for obtain-
ing dimethyl ether from carbinol. Japanese patent application by
Katsunari et al. [JP 2004089873] from Sumitomo Heavy Industries
concern a general purpose DWC where liquid load is used to control
the vapour load on product side. Highly intriguing is conguration
worked out in JP 2001353401 by Y. Ikuo et al. from Kyowa Yuka
KK, which resembles two common DWC placed in parallel in one
shell. This means that upper and lower end are separated by one
partition wall and in central zone there are four partition walls in
parallel. There is no doubt that Far East countries will give a signif-
icant contribution to further development and application of DWC
technology.
Usually, a DWC is considered as new design option. However,
there are situations in practice where a DWC could be imple-
mented as debottleneck option, for instance to upgrade the purity
of conventional side product columns. In a most recent publica-
tion, Premkumar and Rangaiah [107] discuss benets of possible
retrots of a variety of industrial distillation systems to a DWC
system.
6.1. Reactive DWC
Combining reaction and distillation in one shell proved to be,
where appropriate, a really great process intensication success,
which implemented in conjunction with a DWC could lead to some-
thing we could call a step toward ultimate sustainability in process
industries. This was recognised long ago and was claimed by Kaibel
in his 1984 patent [EU 0 126 288], by placing the catalytic pack-
ings into prefractionator part of a DWC. In US patent 6,930,206,
Groten and Marascino of Catalytic Distillation Technologies, pio-
neer company in the eld of heterogeneously catalysed reactive
distillations, allow also for placing the catalyst containing contac-
tor at the product side. Kiss et al. [108] describe a study undertaken
to arrive at reactive DWC design for an industrial case within
AkzoNobel Chemicals, which indicated that savings with respect
to conventional alternative would be 35% on capital and 15% on
energy side. Recently a reactive DWC became a subject of concen-
trated research effort within a multipartner EU project, including
several academic institutions and industrial partners, both users
and equipment manufacturers [109].
Interesting to mention here is that in conjunction with reactive
DWC rst attempt has been made to employ rate-based modelling
approach [110,111], which is fundamentally sound and quite real-
istic, but requires detailed information on geometric characteristics
of trays and/or packings used that is available only in case of exist-
ing columns. Mueller and Kenig [110] present a rate-based model
of a non-reactive DWC developed using ASPEN Custom Modeler, an
equation-oriented simulation tool. The authors presented a com-
 I. Dejanovic et al. / Chemical Engineering and Processing 49 (2010) 559580
parison of obtained column proles for the non-reactive case, with
and without taking into consideration the heat transfer across the
wall. Later, their rate-based approach is extended to simulate the
reactive distillation case of catalytic transesterication of dimethyl
carbonate and methanol to diethyl carbonate and methanol, how-
ever with neglected heat transfer effect. One thing that remains
unclear, however, is on what basis the initial reactive DWC design
was obtained. Probably in conjunction with an outside optimiza-
tion routine, this approach could provide a powerful tool for design
of such systems.
Although potential benets of rate-based modelling approach
may appear appealing, one should note that conceptual and nal
dimensioning of DWCs is usually performed by transforming the
stage requirement, i.e. the number of theoretical plates into actual
trays via proprietary data on tray efciency, or packed bed height
via HETP expected from chosen type and size of random or struc-
tured packing. As elaborated in greater detail elsewhere [2], a
decisive advantage of conventional approach is that the number
of required (equilibrium) stages can be determined for majority of
industrial applications with ultimate rigour, which, in conjunction
with the proprietary knowledge on efciencies of various trays and
packings leads to safe designs.
Certainly, employing rate-based modelling approach to com-
plex reaction-separation situation as encountered in a reactive
DWC allows a closer approach to reality than conventional
equilibrium-based approach. However, as indicated elsewhere [2],
the extent of this strongly depends on the appropriateness of model
parameters, and, unfortunately also on some numerical factors like
the degree of bed discretisation. This suggests that further progress
along this line of development requires adequate experimental
support, as for instance that reported recently in a paper by Sander
et al. [112]. They report the results of an experimental study car-
ried out using well established model system, i.e. metyl acetate
hydrolysis into methanol and acetic acid, performed using a lab-
oratory set-up, which served as basis for design of a pilot-scale
reactive DWC (internal diameter of 0.2 m and height of around
6 m) that was built and successfully operated at Sulzer Chemtech in
Winthertur. This column was equipped in distillation sections with
Sulzer high performance structured packing MellapakPlus 752.Y,
and reactive section contained Sulzer reactive structured packing
Katapak SP 11. Total reux distillation performances of these pack-
ings as observed in experimental studies carried out using TU Delft
0.45 m internal diameter column can be found elsewhere [113,114].
Sander et al. [112] report that so far they have not reached the
desired methanol purity and methyl acetate conversion. However,
their experimental results are in good accordance with the pro-
cess model, which could be used to design a reactive DWC system
of the desired performance. As mentioned before, the accuracy in
this respect can only be expected if model parameters have been
determined experimentally. Another experimental effort of similar
scale (0.15 m internal diameter) but more of academic nature and
motivation, is reported in most recent publication by Hernandez
et al. [115], who have carried out methyl-acetate synthesis by cat-
alytic esterication of methanol and acetic acid. The DWC design
was made on the basis of work by Hernandez and Jimenez [31],
using ASPEN Plus. The goal of their procedure is to vary the initial
design until minimum energy consumption is achieved. There is
no doubt that more research efforts along this line of development
will follow.
7. Concluding remarks
Papers and patents published until the end of 2009 address-
ing dividing wall column and related technologies have been
evaluated. Since rst industrial application in 1985, the dividing
575
wall column has moved from a conceptual to an industry-proven
technology, steadily growing in the number and size of applica-
tions. Today numerous industrial applications are known, mainly
concerning 3 components separations. Further development and
implementation efforts are oriented towards separation of more
than three components using a DWC. In order to maximize
potential gain on energy saving, multiple partition wall congu-
rations should be employed, which however may prove to be too
demanding or expensive, which means that viable designs will
not necessarily be the most energy efcient ones. Similar trade-
off exists between energy efciency and controllability. On the
other side, adopting non-welded partition wall design approach
minimizes difculties to be associated with the construction of
complex columns, at least for those to be equipped with structured
packings.
One should also note that DWC technology knows some limi-
tations. Although it provides considerable savings in the amount
of energy required for separation, that energy has to be supplied
and rejected at the highest and the lowest temperature levels,
respectively. This can reduce the overall economy of the column,
because more expensive utilities must be used. Secondly, the entire
sequence that is contained in a DWC operates on the same pressure,
which can reduce its cost effectiveness. Another potential drawback
is that a DWC is larger in size than any single column in the con-
ventional separation sequence, which in certain cases can render it
impractical.
As for design, there are both short-cut and detailed methods
described in literature. Short-cut designs based mostly on the
Fenske-Underwod-Gilliland-Kirkbride equations have been proven
suitable for ideal mixtures. However, in any case, when nal
designs are considered detailed methods are required, for which
Halvorsens Vmin method can provide good initialization values for
liquid and vapour splits.
Available process simulators still do not include a DWC as a
separate model. Instead, modeller can use various sequences of
conventional column modules to mimic a DWC. However, there
are difculties regarding initialization and convergence of these
models. Based on own experience, it is generally more benecial
to use models with as little as possible column sections to reduce
convergence time and increase stability, however single column
pump-around model is not recommended, especially not for sep-
aration of more than three products, because it is difcult to set
up. Rigorous computer methods are basically performance evalua-
tion and not design oriented, and built-in optimization algorithms
can not handle integer variables, i.e. number of stages in particu-
lar sections. Therefore, to obtain design related parameters one has
to use an external optimization routine. A good design procedure
that would overcome this problem could signicantly contribute
to further expanding the eld of DWC applications.
Although interactive sequential approach to performance sim-
ulation and optimization may be improved, it appears that
simultaneous solving, equations-based approach, with its supe-
rior convergence stability and speed is much more effective in
this respect. Namely, it allows combining detailed simulations with
powerful optimization routines. This is the key to successful sim-
ulation and design of DWC congurations for obtaining four and
more products.
Control problems have been addressed in many academic
papers, and these give impression of existence of many issues in
this respect. Fortunately, although more difcult to control com-
pared to conventional columns, industrial experiences indicate that
the control of a DWC is satisfactory. Some experienced people do
not consider dynamic simulations as necessary [78]. However, for
those less experienced, dynamic simulations appeared to be a use-
ful means, providing insight into the behaviour of the system and
guidance for choice of control strategy.
576 I. Dejanovic et al. / Chemical Engineering and Processing 49 (2010) 559580
Dimensioning of such columns is still proprietary knowledge
of a few companies. It is important not only from a hydraulic
design point of view, but also from a process control point of view.
The main reason is that vapour split, which is one of the control
variables, is established spontaneously depending on the ow resis- P6
tances on each side of the wall. This means that it is effectively set
in the dimensioning phase and can not be changed later. Real chal-
lenge in this respect is designing internal conguration for four
and more products column with multiple partitions, which how-
ever appears to be that demanding that it has not been attempted
yet.
Regarding the fact that the pressure drop is a natural means
of establishing cross sectional vapour distribution, it is of great
importance to have a reliable predictive model, versatile enough to
properly account for adjustments needed in geometry of packings
(corrugation dimensions and angles, etc.) or/and trays (free area,
weir height, etc.) to arrive at required vapour ows which will, in
conjunction with xed liquid ows, ensure equal pressure drop in
each of parallel sections.
The experimental research on DWC is presently aimed at
acquiring knowledge that will support further development and
implementation of reactive distillation applications. Since a reac-
tive DWC can be associated with implementing practically an
ultimate sustainability approach in chemical process industries,
there is no doubt that both academic and industrial laboratories will
proceed with relevant research to provide necessary experimen-
tal evidence to further develop and validate advanced predictive
models.
Regarding the number and variety of industrial applications,
dividing wall column can already be considered as a distillation pro-
cess intensication success story. Being a genuine representative
of substantial distilling, making slowly inroad into the applications
dominated by tray columns, DWC will certainly develop into a stan-
dard type of distillation column in the near future.
Acknowledgements
We thank Julius MONTZ GmbH for providing an update on the
number of DWCs delivered over the years (Fig. 6) as well as the
drawing shown in Fig. 14.
Appendix A.
Patents included in present survey are listed according to the
order of appearance as US patent, based on the year of publication,
including (in parentheses) the year when the patent was led. P19
If a US patent has been preceded by a European (EP), or world
application (WO), or a national patent this is indicated accordingly.
If there is no US equivalent, EU or WO patent is named, and in all
cases the original patent is mentioned under Priority data. The
latter are mainly German patents. Full texts can be downloaded
using Google Patent facilities.
1930-1939
P1 E.W Luster, US 1,915,681, 1933 (1930); Apparatus for
fractionating cracked products, with two feeds and one side
product.
P2 D.A. Monro, US 2,134,882, 1938 (1935); Fractionating
apparatus and method of fractionation.
1940-1959
P3 A.J. Brugma, US 2,295,256, 1942 (1936), Priority data NL
41,850 (1936);
Process and device for fractional distillation of liquid
mixtures, more particularly petroleum.
P4 R.O. Wright, US 2,471,134, 1949 (1946);
Fractionation apparatus.
1960-1979
P5 R.P. Cahn, E. DiMiceli, A.G. DiMiceli, US 3,058,893, 1962
(1959); Separation of multicomponent mixture in single
tower; describes fully thermally coupled column which
became known as Petlyuk column.
R.K. Lacey, C.H. Zakovi, US 3,314,879, 1967 (1965);
Fractionation process and apparatus.
P7 R.G. Graven, US 3,412,016, 1968 (1967); Method and
apparatus for contemporaneously fractionating a plurality of
hydrocarbon mixtures.
1980-1989
P8 V.A. Giroux, Phillips Petroleum Company, US 4,230,533,
1980 (1978); Fractionation method and apparatus.
P9 G. Kaibel, BASF AG, EP 0 122 367 A2, 1984 (1984); Priority
data DE 3302525 (1983); A distillation column, for
separation of a multicomponent feed mixture into pure
fractions, to obtain a top and a bottom product as well as one,
two or more side products.
P10 G. Kaibel, BASF AG, EP 0 126 288 A2, 1984 (1984), Priority
data DE 3314395 (1983);
A method for simultaneous carrying out of chemical reactions
and separation by distillation of products mixture using a
distillation column.
1990-2000
P11 G. Kaibel, K. Schloemer, H.-H. Mayer, BASF AG, US
4,994,152, 1991 (1989); Priority data DE 3902006 (1989);
Removal of small amounts of a medium-boiling fraction from
a liquid mixture by distillation
P12 M.J. Lockett, D.P. Bonaquist, R.A. Victor, Praxair Technology
Inc., US 5,339,648, 1994 (1993);
Distillation system with partitioned column, for air distillation
with two side products on opposite sides of the partition wall.
P13 G. Kaibel, H. Hartmann, DE 35 22 234 C2, 1994 (1985);
A method for energy efcient operation of a distillation
column
P14 H. Jansen, J. Leben, T. Rietfort, E. Zich, J. MONTZ GmbH, DE
43 36 983 A1, 1995 (1993);
Column with a partition wall
P15 H. Jansen, J. Leben, T. Rietfort, E. Zich, US 5,585,046, 1996
(1994); Priority data DE 43 36 985.5 (1993);
Column for performing thermal separations and/or chemical
reactions, with specially designed and placed wall wipers.
P16 H. Jansen, J. Leben, T. Rietfort, E. Zich, J. Montz GmbH, US
5,580,425, 1996 (1994); Priority data DE 43 36 984.7
(1993);
Column for overheated liquids.
P17 G. Kaibel, H.-H. Fick, E. Mittelstaedt, W. Hettich, BASF AG,
DE 35 10 365 C2, 1996 (1985);
Verfahren zur destillativen Zerlegung eines Gemisches mittels
einer Destillationskolonne
P18 G. Kaibel, M., Stroezel, EP 0 780 147 A2, 1997 (1996);
Priority data DE 19547450, (1995);
A method for control of a dividing wall column or a thermally
coupled column
H.D. Dahl, U. Lenz, HULS AG EP 0 806 406 A1, 1997 (1997),
Priority data DE 196 18 152 (1996);
A method for separation of raw esther in DMT-process.
P20 T.P. Ognisty, D.B. Manley, M.W. Kellog Co., US 5,709,780,
1998 (1996);
Partitioned distillation column.
P21 T.P. Ognisty, D.B. Manley, M.W. Kellog Co., US 5,755,993,
1998 (1995);
Partitioned distillation column, with the partition wall in the
upper part of the column, i.e. two overhead product streams.
P22 G. Kaibel, M. Stroezel, J. Pfefnger, BASF AG, US 5,785,819,
1998 (1996); Distillation column for separating a liquid into
a plurality of pure fractions.
P23 F.F. Billingham, M.J. Lockett, D.P. Bonaquist, US 5,836,174,
1998 (1997);
Cryogenic rectication system for producing multi-purity
oxygen.
P24 G. Kaibel, BASF AG, US 5,897,748, 1999 (1996);
Distillative separation of mixtures and apparatus for this
purpose, with different provisions to ensure certain liquid
load in the wall zone.
P25 B.W. Gerhold, US 5,902,460, 1999 (1996);
Multi-satge fractional distillation process and apparatus
P26 G. Kaibel, M. Stroezel, U. Rheude, BASF AG, US 5,914,012,
1999 (1997); Priority data DE 196 17 210 (1996);
 I. Dejanovic et al. / Chemical Engineering and Processing 49 (2010) 559580 577

Dividing wall column for continuous fractionation of Dividing wall column control system, with the purpose of
multicomponent mixtures by distillation, with a detachable setting the liquid split by monitoring the temperature in the
partition wall and elastic wall wipers that eliminate liquid top of the product side of the dividing wall column.
and vapour bypassing and x the wall. P47 P.C. Stacey, UOP LLC, US 6,558,515 B1, 2003 (2001);
P27 K.K. Wong, J.F. Billingham, D.P. Bonaquist, B. Arman, R.F. Dividing wall fractionation column control system and
Drnevich, M.M. Shah, T.A. Skare, US 5,946,942, 1999 apparatus, describing regulating the rate of vapor ow in the
(1998); two adjacent sections of a trayed dividing wall column.
Annular column for cryogenic rectication. P48 P.C. Stacey, UOP LLC, US 6,645,350 B1, 2003 (2001);
Dividing wall column fractionation tray, where heat transfer
2000-2009
through the vertical partition wall is mitigated by providing a
P28 K. Stork, Kellog Brown & Root, Inc., US 6,077,985, 2000
separate vertical isolation wall between the downcomer and
(1999);
the dividing wall.
Integrated deethanizer/ethylene fractionation column, with
P49 D.A. Hamm, UOP LLC, WO 03/051799 A1; International
direct vapor recompression and a partition wall in bottom
publication 2003 (2001);
part of the column.
Adsorptive separation product recovery by fractional
P29 P. Schwab, R. Schulz, M. Schulz, B. Breitscheidel, G. Meyer,
distillation.
BASF AG, US 6,166,279, 2000 (1999); Priority data DE 198
P50 B. Brad, F. Steffens, B. Kegenhof, K. Verkerk, G. Ruffert, US
13 720 (1998);
2003/0230476 A1 2003 (2003);
Preparation of olens.
Process for t he puricatio of mixtures o toluenediiocyanate
P30 R. Agrawal, Air Products and Chemicals, Inc., US 6,250,106
ncorporating a dividing-wall column.
B1, 2001 (1999);
P51 G.P. Towler, M.A. Schulz, UOP LLC, US 6,726,835, 2004
Process for separation of multicomponent uids using a
(2002);
multizone distillation column, describing a dividing wall
Fractionation for full boiling range gasoline desulfurization
column conguration with additional horizontal partition on
P52 H. Jansen, J. Leben, T. Rietfort, E. Zich, J. MONTZ GmbH, US
product side, with side reboiler and side condenser above and
6,770,173 B1, 2004 (2000); Priority data DE 199 47 246
below the horizontal partition wall, respectively.
(1999); see also EP 1088577 A1 (2001);
P31 O. Watzenberger, BASF AG, US 6,254,735 B1, 2001 (1996),
Column partition, describing segments with plug and clamp
Priority data DE 195 47 758 (1995);
connectors, for assembling a partition wall without xing it to
Process for separating medium boiling substances from a
column walls.
mixture of low, medium and high boiling substances.
P53 A. Ansmann, J. Henkelmann, A. Kindler, H. Etzrodt, C. Oost,
P32 K.-H. Wostbrock, G. Kaibel, C Tragut, G. Anken, US
S. Stutz, C. Tragut, B. Bockstiegel, K. Reimer, M. Stroezel, W.
2001/0010286 A1 2001 (2001), Priority date DE
Dobler, BASF AG, US 6,628,468 B2, 2004 (2002); Priority
10004311.9 (2000)
data DE 101 23 066 (2001);
Purication of ammonia by distillation.
Preparation of higher ,-unsaturated alcohols.
P33 H. Rust, G. Kaibel, US 2001/0052453 A1, patent application
P54 E. Zich, H. Jansen, T. Rietfort, B. Kaibel, J. MONTZ GmbH, EP
(2001); Priority data DE 10021624.2 (2000);
1 390 111 A1, 2004 (2002); priority date DE 101 24 690 A1
Dividing wall column (see also P62).
(2001).
P34 H. Jansen, J. Leben, T. Rietfort, E. Zich, J. MONTZ GmbH, DE
Fixing parts for segments for assembling a partition wall.
43 36 984 C2, 2001 (1993);
P55 H.-P. Schal, U. Wolf, B. Thelen, EP 1 475 367 A1 2004
Column for overheated liquids.
(2004); Priority data DE 103 20 504 (2003);
P35 H. Jansen, J. Leben, T. Rietfort, E. Zich, J. MONTZ GmbH, DE
Method for distillation of a mixture of isomers of
43 36 985 C2 / DE 43 36 986 C2 / DE 43 36 983 (A1), 2001
diisocyanatodiphenylmethane.
(1993);
P56 C.P. Van Zile, J.W. Harris, UOP LLC, WO 2004/071618 A1,
Column for carrying out thermal separations and/or chemical
2004 (2003);
reactions.
Dividing wall column control system, with the purpose of
P36 H. Jansen, J. Leben, T. Rietfort, E. Zich, J. MONTZ GmbH, DE
setting the liquid split by monitoring the temperature in the
43 36 986 C2, 2001 (1993);
top of the product side of the dividing wall column.
Kolonne mit Trennwand.
P57 W.A. Groten, M.J. Maraschino, US 2004/0204614 A1, Patent
P37 P. Tung, US 6,347,533 B1, 2002 (2000);
application (2004);
Hydraulically balanced fully thermally coupled system
Process and apparatus for catalytic distillations.
P38 L.H. Rice, UOP LLC, US 6,395,950 B1, 2002 (2000);
P58 G. Kaibel, A. Weck, R.-T. Rahn, BASF AG, US 6,846,389 B2,
Isomerization with adsorptive separation and dividing wall
2005 (2001); Priority data DE 100 21 703 (2000);
fractional distillation.
Method for distillative separation of mixtures containing
P39 D. Hamm, US 6,395,951, 2002 (2000); Adsorptive
tetrahydrofuran, -butyrolactone and/or 1,4-butanediol.
separation product recovery by fractional distillation,
P59 T. Gutermuth, H. Domes, LURGi AG, US 6,884,324 B2, 2005
utilizing a dividing wall column.
(2003); Priority data DE 102 07 460 (2002);
P40 D.E. OBrien, L.H. Rice, UOP LLC, US 6,407,303 B1, 2002
Column for concentrating phthalic anhydride.
(2000);
P60 M.A. Schulz, J.A. Weiszmann, US Patent 6,927,314 B1, 2005
Isomerization process with adsorptive separation and
(2002);
integrated fractional distillation.
Fractionation and treatment of full boiling range gasoline.
P41 D.E. OBrien, D.H. Bielinski, and Z. Xu, UOP LLC, US
P61 W.A. Groten, M.J. Maraschino, CDTECH, US 6,930,206 B1,
6,479,720 B1, 2002 (1999);
2005 (2002);
Alkylaromatic process using efcient prefractionation.
Process and apparatus for catalytic distillations, claiming a
P42 D.E. OBrien, UOP LLC, US 6,483,002 B1, 2002 (2000);
dividing wall column with catalytic distillation structure on
Integrated fractional distillation for adsorptive separation
one of the sides of the partition wall.
process.
P62 H. Rust, G. Kaibel, BASF AG, US 6,958,111 B2, 2005 (2001);
P43 L.H. Rice, UOP LLC, EP 1 205 460 A1, 2002 (2001);.
Priority data DE 100 21 624 (2000);
Process for distillation, in a column with a dividing wall, of
Dividing wall column, with (non-welded) partition wall
saturated hydrocarbons obtained by isomerisation.
constructed partly of an elastic material pressing against the
P44 J. Menzel, S. Wenzel, KRUPP UHDE GmbH, DE 101 35 585
column wall to avoid leakage of liwuid and/or vapour to the
C1, 2002 (2001);
other side of the partition wall.
Process for recovering a pure aromatic fraction containing
P63 J. Meenen, K. Hlleman, G. Kaibel, DE 10 2004 024 688
benzene, toluene xylenes from renery streams by extractive
(A1), patent application 2005 (2004);
distillation, comprises processing solvent and process
Dividing wall column.
mixtures.
P64 P.C. Stacey, UOP LLC, WO 2005/046831 (A1), International
P45 G.P. Towler, M.A. Schulz, UOP LLC, US 6,540,907 B1, 2003
publication 2005 (2003);
(2001).
Dividing wall column fractionation tray, where heat transfer
Fractionation for full boiling range gasoline desulfurization.
through the vertical partition wall is mitigated by providing a
P46 C.P. Van Zile, J.W. Harris, UOP LLC, US 6,551,465 B1, 2003
separate vertical isolation wall between the downcomer and
(2001);
the dividing wall.
578 I. Dejanovic et al. / Chemical Engineering and Processing 49 (2010) 559580
P65 K.-H. Wostbrock, G. Kaibel, C. Tragut, G. Anken, BASF AG,
US 7,001,490 B2, 2006 (2001); Priority data DE 100 04 311
(2000);
Purication of ammonia by distillation.
P66 T.N. Kalnes, UOP LLC, US 7,005,057 B1, 2006 (2002);
Hydrocracking process for the production of ultra low sulfur
diesel, incorporating a dividing wall column to produce a
liquid hydrocarbonaceous stream containing diesel boiling
range hydrocarbons.
P67 G. Kaibel, C. Miller, K. Klass, A. Kindler, W. Aquila, W.
Dobler, K. Breuer, A. Pommer, T. Dirnsteiner, BASF AG, US
7,090,748 B2, 2006 (2002); Priority data DE 101 63 335
(2001);
Dividing-wall column with feed in whole or in part in the
vaporous state and/or side stream take off in whole or in part
in the vaporous state, introducing off-centre positions of
un-xed partition walls arranged to ensure same vapour
loads on each side of the partition wall.
P68 M.P. Grn, B. Brady, B. Kegenhoff, K. Verkerk, H.-P. Schal,
BAYER AG, US 7,108,770 B2, 2006 (2003); Priority data EP
02023662 (2002).
Process for the purication of toluene diisocyanate
incorporating a dividing-wall distillation column for the nal
purication.
P69 T. Sirch, G. Kaibel, A. Wartini, M. Dernbach, BASF AG, US
7,112,707 B2, 2006 (2002); Priority data DE 101 60 180
(2001);
Method fort he isolation of trimethylolpropane from a
reaction mixture.
P70 B. Brady, F. Steffens, B. Kegengoff, K. Verkerk, G. Ruffert,
BAYER AG, US 7,118,653 B2, 2006 (2003), Priority data EP
02013460 (2002);
Process for the purication of mixtures of toluenediisocyanate
incorporating a dividing-wall distillation column.
P71 G. Bohner, K. Kindler, M. Pahl, G. Kaibel, BASF AG, US
7,132,038 B2, 2006 (2001); Priority data DE 100 56 841
(2000);
Method and device for obtaining 1,3 pure butadiene from 1,3
raw butadiene by distillation.
P72 O. Lang, B. Rumpf, M. Frauenkron, M. Bosch, H. Bersche, A.
Meier, BASF AG, US 7,132,538, 2006 (2004); Priority data
DE 103 19 159 (2003);
Isolation of high-purity triethylendiamine (TEDA) by
distillation.
P73 R. Glatthaar, C. Kunz, H. Ranke, US 2006/0005574 A1,
Patent application (2003); Priority data DE 102 16 269.7
(2002); see also EP 02011058.1 (2002);
Method for extracting argon by low-temperature air
separation.
P74 H. Kister, W. Stupin, US 2006/0137967 A1, Patent
application (2006); see also WO 2004/052491 A1, 2004
(2002);
Distillation systems, where a differential vapor pressure
(DVP) cell is disposed in the divided wall column at a level
below the point where feed enters the column, to enable
monitoring the concentration of a component.
P75 H. Jansen, J. Loeben, T. Rietfort, E. Zich, J. Montz GmbH, EP 1
088 577 B1, 2006 (2000), Priority data DE 19947246 (1999)
Dividing wall for columns.
P76 G. Kaibel, C. Oost, M. Stroezel, G. Meyer, P. Trbenbach,
K.-H. Sartor, J. Heners, BASF AG, US 7,169,267 B2, 2007
(2001); Priority data DE 100 46 609 (2000);
Method and device for carrying out the distillative separation
of C5+ cuts.
P77 K.W. Kovak, Air Products and Chemicals, Inc., US 7,234,691
B2, 2007 (2005);
Radial-crossow distillation trays for divided wall column
applications.
P78 G. Kaibel, C. Miller, K. Kla, A. Kindler, W. Aquila, W.
Dobler, K. Breuer, A. Pommer, T. Dirnsteiner, BASF AG, US
7,264,696 B2, 2007 (2006); Priority data DE 101 63 335
(2001);
Dividing-wall column with feed in whole or in part in the
vaporous state and/or side stream take off in whole or in part
in the vaporous state, introducing off-centre positions of
un-xed partition walls arranged to ensure same vapour
loads on each side of the partition wall.
P79 J.W. Harris, S.P. Rosenblum, M.A. Schultz, D.E. OBrien, D.G.
Stewart, UOP LLC, US 7,267,746 B1, 2007 (2003);
Dividing wall distillation column control apparatus.
P80 E. Zich, H. Jansen, T. Rietfort, B. Kaibel, J. MONTZ, US
7,287,747 B2, 2007 (2002), Priority data DE 101 24 690
(2001);
Partition assembly for packed or tray column, describing
mechanical provisions for assembling an unxed
(non-welded) partition wall in tray column.
P81 M. Siegert, N. Lang, E. Stroefer, A. Stammer, T. Friese, BASF
AG, US 2007/0293688 A1; Patent application 2007 (2005);
Priority data DE 10 2004 040284.1 (2004);
Method fort he separation by distillation of pure trioxane.
P82 M. Gall, G. Kaibel, T. Krug, H. Rust, F. Stein, BASF AG, US
7,329,330 (B2), 2008 (2002); Priority data DE 101 00 552
(2001);
Method and device for the distillative processing of
1,6-hexanediol, 1,5-pentanediol and caprolactone.
P83 C. Knoesche, M. Sohn, U. Penzel, H.-J. Pallasch, G. Georgi,
W. Mackenroth, H. V. Schwarz, S. Maixner, G. Molz, E.
Stroefer, BASF AG, US 7,342,134 B2, 2008 (2005); Priority
data DE 10 2004 001 456 (2004);
Method for distillative recovery of toluylendiamine.
P84 I.R. Zone, C. Chalk, K.W. Kovak, S. Sunder, Air Products and
Chemicals, US 7,357,378 B2, 2008 (2004);
Divided wall exchange column, describing mechanical
provisions done to strengthen the partition wall by stiffening
members and/or a double wall design to better withstand
pressure differentials and minimize temperature differentials.
P85 M.A. Schultz, K.A. Couch, HONEYWELL (UOP), US
2008/0081937 A1, patent application 2008 (2006); see also
WO 2008/039891 (A1), 2008 (2006);
Dividing wall separation in light olen hydrocarbon
processing.
P86 M.A. Schultz, S.P. Lankton, C.P. Tagamolia, US
2008/0289946 (A1), patent application (2008). Apparatus
for producing ethylbenzene or cumene.
P87 P. Bassler, H.-G. Goebbel, J.H. Teles, P. Rudolf, BASF AG, US
7,527,712 B2, 2009 (2003); Priority data DE 10233388
(2002);
Method for the continuous purication by distillation of the
solvent methanol, used in the synthesis of propylene oxide.
P88 J.E. Zimmermann, D.E. OBrien, UOP LLC, US 7,528,290 B2,
2009 (2006);
Apparatuses and methods for separating butene-1 from
mixed C4 feed.
P89 W. Peschel, H. Schoenmakers, K. Althaus, T. Kirscher, H.
Staatz, BASF AG, US 7,547,378 B2, 2009 (2004); Priority
data DE 10315214 (2003).
Method for the purication of dimethylacetamide (DMAC).
P90 B. Heida, BASF AG, US 7,556,717, 2009 (2003); Priority data
DE 102 58 160 (2002);
Method and device for extractive distillation, describing a
separation with a partition wall in the upper part of the
column, with two overhead products.
P91 M.L. VanNuland, J.M. Cheben, R.I. De Martino, J.R. Porter,
EXXONMOBIL CC, US 2009/0139852 A1, 2009 (2007).
Separation method and apparatus, for handling a feed of
C5+cut, where a side heater is employed below the side draw.
P92 T. Genger, A. Haunert, A. Meier, BASF SE, WO 2009/092682
A2, patent application 2009 (2008); Priority data EP
0815059.4 (2008);
Method and device for the distillative processing of
1,5,9-cyclododecatriene and extraction of CDT at high purity.
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