COMPARISON OF THE SEPARATION PERFORMANCES OF A MULTI-EFFECT BATCH DISTILLATION SYSTEM AND A CONTINUOUS DISTILLATION SYSTEM

Abstract A new type of batch distillation system which separates multiple components simultaneously is proposed. The features of this system are that the steam is supplied to the reboiler of the first column only, and a condenser of one column is heat-integrated with the reboiler of the next column. Therefore, the energy required to separate multiple components is markedly less than that of an ordinary batch distillation system. The energy consumption of the proposed system is compared with that of an ordinary continuous distillation system. Through simulation, it is found that the proposed system has the potential to have a better separation performance than a continuous system if the number of products is increased.