Abstract: A laboratory scale dividing wall column (DWC) was built for separating a mixture consisting of ethanol/n-butanol/hexanol in order to study the characteristics of the DWC. The influences of feed volume ratio，feed flow rate，reflux ratio and distribution ratio on separation result were investigated. Through calculation，the energy consumption of separating the above mixture was compared between DWC and conventional two distillation column process. When the volume ratio of n-butanol in the feed was 60% and the content of ethanol was equal to hexanol，feed flow rate was 1.8 mL/min，distribution ratio was 1∶2，reflux ratio was 5∶1，the result was the best，the mass fraction of ethanol could reach more than 96% in the overhead product，the mass fraction of n-butyl alcohol could reach more than 98% in the side-draw product，and the bottom of column had no ethanol. Compared with the conventional two distillation column process，DWC required less energy，the energy consumption of condenser and reboiler could be reduced by more than 27.2% and 23.9% respectively.