AN OPTIMAL CAMPAIGN STRUCTURE FOR MULTICOMPONENT BATCH DISTILLATION WITH REVERSIBLE-REACTION

When resource utilization and/or minimization of waste is comparable i n importance to the production rate, the design of the operation polic y should encompass an entire campaign of batches rather than a single batch. This notion of campaign optimization is particularly relevant t o batch distillation with reversible reaction which produces significa nt amounts of off-cuts. Reprocessing these off-cuts merely based on co nsideration of a single batch may lead not only to inefficient product ion rates but also to the inefficient utilization of reactants. A gene ral strategy for deciding the campaign structure for such an operation is presented. The concept of distillation characteristic is introduce d, and its exploitation is shown to result in a simple but effective r eprocessing policy for off-cuts. The economic benefits of such a campa ign structure are demonstrated with the help of a case study.