Recovery of N-butanol from a complex five-component reactive azeotropic mixtureBogataj, Miloš (Avtor) Kravanja, Zdravko (Avtor) Nemet, Andreja (Avtor) recyclingn-butanolazeotropic mixtureseparationprocess designenergy efficiencyThis paper proposes a concept of a process design for the separation and recovery of n-butanol from a five-component mixture, consisting of n-butanol, isobutanol, formaldehyde, water and methanol. The mixture is a common waste stream in the production of butylated amino resins; therefore, recovery of n-butanol is crucial to the efficiency of the process. The results show that up to 94% of the n-butanol present in the waste stream can be recovered. Under the studied conditions, 99.76% pure n-butanol can be obtained, while formaldehyde, water and methanol are present only in traces. The energy intensity of the process is estimated at 2.42 MJ/kg of purified n-butanol. The economic analysis of the process shows that the process is economically viable over a wide range of production capacities, as evidenced by high net present values and high return on investment values.MDPI AG20222023-08-17 14:32:36Znanstveno delo85069sl© 2022 by the authors