Journal of Process Control, Vol.42, 59-76, 2016
Design and control of pressure-swing distillation for azeotropes with different types of boiling behavior at different pressures
The mixture of n-heptane and isobutanol presents minimum- and maximum-boiling azeotropes as the pressure changes. Two different pressure-swing distillation (PSD) processes are available for this mixture if the pressure of the low-pressure column is set as atmospheric. The steady states of the two available PSDs are optimized by minimizing the total annual cost (TAC) following a sequential iterative optimization procedure. On the basis of the steady-state results, the dynamic control of the two available PSDs and a comparison between them are presented. The conventional PSD (CPSD) is more economical but less controllable than the unusual PSD (UPSD), which has seldom been studied in the published literature. These two different PSD processes should be considered for the separation of this type of mixture according to their advantages. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords:Dynamic control;Pressure-swing distillation;Minimum-boiling azeotropes;Maximum-boiling azeotropes;n-Heptane;Isobutanol