Distillation processes with relative volatility near to one require huge amounts of energy and extremely high columns. In order to reduce the costs, several energy conserving methods can be utilized. In the case of separating 1-butene from the C4 fractions, two columns are needed, which makes it possible to consider their heat integration. Due to the small temperature differences between the column tops and bottoms, the heat pump processes are also promising. As the result of an exhaustive computer-aided analysis a combination of heat integration and vapour recompression proves to be the most economical scheme for separating 1-butene.