Separation process synthesis for multicomponent products.

Abstract

Introduction of division and blending into the separation process of multicomponent products is effective from the viewpoint of reduction of the separation mass load, but it is difficult to solve this synthesis problem because there exists information feedback between the separation sequence and introduction of division and blending. A useful method composed of two stages-search for the optimal separation sequence, and optimization of the separation process by introduction of division and blending-is developed for synthesis of the separation process of two multicomponent products. For the former the evolutionary method, developed for the synthesis of the separation process of pure-substance products, is adopted, and for the latter a new evolutionary method, which uses the material allocation diagram to obtain useful information about the separation process, is developed. A 5-component separation process synthesis problem demonstrates the effectiveness of this method.