Synthesis of practical distillation schemes

Software is needed for the synthesis of separation schemes. However, the requirement is for procedures controled by the engineer. Since energy costs tend to dominate the problem, the first need is for a tool which clearly demonstrates the energy implications of individual options. The Heat Load Table developed in this paper provides such a tool. Using this table it becomes possible to identify the better integrated schemes more quickly than non-integrated options. This table can be supplemented and extended by the introduction of distillation thermodynamic analysis to yield a procedure that considers feed conditioning and heat pumping. Finally, it is found that by introducing a consideration of practical constraints at the outset of design, rather than for the evaluation of design options, the size of the synthesis problem is yet further reduced.