Driving Force Based Design of Cyclic Distillation

Driving force based design is adopted from conventional continuous distillation to cyclic distillation. This leads to a definition of the operating line representation for the cyclic distillation process. A possible realization of the driving force design is presented, which implies operation with mixed phase feeds. A range of binary test cases, benzene toluene, methanol water, and ethanol water, are evaluated. The advantage of the design approach in cyclic distillation is shown to be analogous to the advantages obtained in conventional continuous distillation, including a minimal utility consumption of the column and likely less sensitivity to feed composition changes.