Intensification and performance assessment of the formic acid production process through a dividing wall reactive distillation column with vapor recompression

Distillation operation in the production of formic acid (FA) involves a large amount of investment and has high-energy requirements. Thus, process intensification is crucial in minimizing the energy consumption and investment. Dividing wall column (DWC) is one such way of achieving it. Aim of this study is to design a dividing wall reactive distillation column (DWRDC) with vapor recompression in the production of FA instead of normal reactive distillation â\u80\u93 distillation sequence and investigate the performance in terms of energy, cost, and carbon emission. A patented FA production process is chosen as a base case. The intensification of the base case FA production process is then carried out through the application of (i) DWRDC, (ii) vapor recompression in a distillation column, and (iii) vapor recompression in DWRDC. The performance of the new intensified processes is subsequently investigated for multiple performance indexes. It is observed that an impressive saving of 18.33% in utility cost, 8.4% in total annual cost (TAC), 2.55% in cost of manufacturing (COM), and 17.68% in carbon emission can be secured with the proposed new intensification as compared to its conventional counterpart for a payback period of 4 years