In this study, thermally coupled distillation system and conventional two-column process were investigated for extractive distillation. The two processes were simulated and optimized using Aspen plus. Objective function for the optimization was energy consumption and optimization results to reduce energy consumption were used to get guidelines for design and operation for the two extractive distillation processes. Comparison of these two processes showed that thermally coupled distillation system provided better energy efficiency and lower capital cost than conventional distillation system.