Design and Optimization of Intensified Quaternary Petlyuk Configuration

摘要

From its first introduction in 1965, the Petlyuk column received a high interest in the research community. Applied for the separation of three-component mixtures, the Petlyuk column is able to perform the separation with a reduced number of equipment and with a consistent reduction of the energy consumption compared to the classical sequences with simple columns. For a three-component separation the Petlyuk arrangement is composed by a prefractionator fully coupled with a main column that performs the separation of the products. Considering the great potential of these sequences it is natural to think about a possible extension to more than three component separations. In the present work a four component case is examined. If the divided wall column configuration is considered, the presence of three walls inside the main column makes the design and the control too complex to attract the industrial interest for a real application. New intensified sequences were proposed for the separation of four-component mixtures. These configurations use a less number of columns compared to the Petlyuk configuration. The case study reported proves the potential of the alternative configurations.