Cyclic Distillation Technology - A New Challenger in Fluid Separations

Abstract

This paper provides a dual academic and industrial view on cyclic distillation. The cyclic mode of operation is based on separate phase movement (SPM) that can be achieved with specific internals. This leads to major advantages: increased column throughput, reduced energy requirements, and better separation performance (exceeding 200% Murphree efficiency). Next to the substantial theoretical developments in terms of process modeling and simulation, there have been also significant advances in the practical demonstration at pilot and large scale. All this contributed to a better understanding of the design, control and optimization of cyclic distillation processes, and to the development of more robust industrial solutions. The application range is now expanding to other areas, such as: oil refining, chemistry, petro-chemistry, pharmaceutics, biofuels and others.