A systematic procedure for synthesis of intensified simple column configurations for multicomponent distillations

Abstract

In this work, we have presented a systematic procedure for synthesis of intensified simple column configurations (ISC) for multicomponent distillations, which constitutes a new specific subspace of distillation configurations that has not been approached in the earlier works. The intensified simple column configurations fulfill the process intensifications principle that they have reduced the number of columns as well as the number of heat exchangers. More importantly, they keep the similar features as the conventional simple column configurations, that each column produces an overhead product with a condenser and bottoms product with a reboiler. As a consequence, these new intensified simple column configurations keep the similar simplicity in terms of systems design, control and operation as the conventional simple column configurations. However, they have the potential to reduce the energy consumption and especially capital costs substantially due to the improved separation efficiency and reduced number of equipment units. The procedure can be generalized to synthesize the intensified simple column configurations for any traditional distillation configurations of an N-component mixture with both sharp and sloppy splits.