Automatic Design of Extractive Distillation Sequence for a Multicomponent Azeotropic System

The design of the distillation sequence for a multicomponent azeotrope system is often a difficult task depending on the residence curve map and visual analysis, and a systematic approach to address this issue is currently not available. This work proposes a novel method for the automatic design of the extractive distillation sequence. The automatic screening of entrainers for the multicomponent azeotrope system and the short-cut selection criteria for distillation sequences are combined with the automatic generation algorithm system for extractive distillation sequence selection, leading to the discovery of several most economical extractive distillation sequences for a specified multicomponent azeotropic system. The application of the proposed method is illustrated by two examples, a four-component system with four azeotropes and a six-component system with four azeotropes. Compared to the traditional approach, this proposed approach is especially useful for obtaining a promising extractive distillation sequence when multiple azeotropes exist in the system.