| abstract |
A process for the purification of methanol wherein a raw grade methanol comprising methanol, lights and heavies is fed to a Petlyuk column installation (1, 20, 40), such as a dividing wall column. The Petlyuk column installation comprises a fractionation section (7, 25, 42) and a prefractionation section (6, 4, 41) isolated from the fractionation section. The raw grade methanol is fed to the prefractionation section. At least the largest part of the methanol content is passed along a top section (4, 22, 52) of the fractionation section where it is separated from the lights to form a pure grade methanol fraction. |