Integrated process design and control of divided-wall distillation columns using molecular tracking

Abstract This work explores the dynamic and control behavior of dividing wall distillation columns from two different steady-state design approaches (molecular tracking and optimization method) for three different mixtures. The controllability of the six design cases was evaluated using singular value decomposition and the closed-loop performance was evaluated using integral absolute error in Aspen Dynamics. The results demonstrate that the side-draw location obtained by molecular tracking (MT) provides optimal controllability. As a result, there is a slight advantage in control properties while obtaining designs by reducing the time to find the optimal solution through the MT method.