(360c) Process Intensification, a Promising Approach in Separating a Ternary System Using Distillation to Reduce Energy Consumption: Case Study

Separating a ternary mixture into its pure components is a very often required in most of the processes observed in the various industries. At this moment, Distillation is the commonly used process to separate binary or ternary or multi component mixtures provided enough boiling point difference exist among the components. Though it is a frequently used process, distillation is an energy intensive process, which necessities thorough optimization in terms of energy to meet the profitability and sustainability. As the ternary and more component mixtures require series of distillation columns to get the pure components, a systematic approach to effectively optimize the performance of the distillation units in terms of energy, product purity, and operability, is required. For that reason, employing process intensification, energy integration with thorough thermodynamic analysis is a way forward for a cost-effective and energy efficient distillation column network.

In this study, a systematic energy integration of the distillation separation system is developed to get minimum energy consumption with less capital cost. The optimization is carried out in terms of distillation sequence, process intensification, pressure, temperature & composition of the column, no.of stages, and feed tray location. The extent of the energy reduction depends on the composition of the feed as well. The above-explained approach has been utilized in a real time case, which consumes 20% less energy than that of presently employed conventional distillation method for the chosen ternary system. This new method also requires less capital cost for a green field project. The paper also advises general heuristics to employ a particular distillation sequence for separating a ternary mixture system. The methodology employed in the study, can also be utilized to optimize four-component mixture systems.