Separation systems, distillation-based,

Westerberg, A. W., The Synthesis of Distillation-Based Separation Systems, Comp. Chem. Eng., 9 421, 1985. 

By assigning, for instance, binary variables to represent the existence or not of process units in a total process system, the potential matches of hot and cold streams so as to reduce the utility consumption or the existence of trays in a distillation- based separation system, the resulting total number of binary variables can grow to 1000 or more which implies that we have to deal with a large combinatorial problem (/. ., 21000 process flowsheets). 

Chapter 9 Distillation-based Separation Systems Synthesis... 

To illustrate the nature of the distillation-based separation system synthesis problem, let us consider its generic definition shown in Figure 9.1, which is as follows ... 

It should be noted that the distillation-based separation system synthesis problem corresponds to a combinatorial problem, since the number of sequences and configurations increase with the... 

This chapter discusses mixed-integer nonlinear optimization applications in the area of distillation-based separation system synthesis. Section 9.1 introduces the reader to the generic definition of separation system synthesis and provides a classification of the different types of separations based on distillation column sequencing. For further reading on separation system synthesis the reader is referred to the reviews by Westerberg (1985) and Nishida et al. (1981)... 

The synthesis of distillation-based separation systems is strongly supported for two- and three-species mixtures. There is much less support for mixtures of four species, and even less for five. There are several reasons for this, some of which are fundamental. 

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