Startup of distillation columns is one of the most difficult operations of chemical processes. Since it often lasts a period of time, leads to off-products and costs much energy, optimisation of startup operating policies for distillation columns is of great interest in process industry. In the last few years we have accomplished both theoretical studies and experimental verifications with the purpose of developing optimal startup policies for distillation columns. As a result, significant reduction of startup time period can be achieved by implementing the developed optimal policies. This paper summarises our recent results from these studies.
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