A hierarchical selection and decision matrix for energy-efficient intensified distillation technologies

Abstract

Distillation is widely used for separation in chemical industries, but accounts for a half of operational costs and 40% of the energy usage due to its low energy efficiency. Process intensification could effectively enhance the energy efficiency and reduce the energy requirement of the distillation processes by integrating unit operations or functions. However, there is no general methodology that enables to choose the best intensified distillation technologies among all available choices for a given separation task. This study generates a conceptual de-composed selection and decision approach by first identifying the process bottlenecks and intensification targets, and then select the most promising intensified techniques via a selection framework and decision matrix based on the identified bottlenecks and intensification targets. Two separation cases are illustrated to demonstrate the developed methodology, and the outcomes are verified with conceptual designs reported in the literature.