In this work two energy saving methods are presented for the separation of a minimum boiling point azeotrope by using an intermediate entrainer. Extractive distillation column configurations with conventional, thermally integrated and dividing-wall columns are used for comparison. These configurations are designed, rigorously simulated and optimized to minimize the Total Annual Cost and to reduce the energy requirement. A novel simple method is proposed based on a Genetic Algorithm to determine the main design and operation parameters of the dividing-wall column. The optimization algorithm is written in Excel Macro interconnected with the ChemCad process flow-sheet simulator. In terms of total annual costs, the extractive dividing-wall column was found to be the most economical scheme, followed by the thermally integrated and conventional extractive distillation methods. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.