Design and Analysis of An Externally Heat-Integrated Distillation Column

In this presentation, we report our recent research outcomes on an externally heat-integrated distillation column (EHIDiC). Although EHIDiC is in principle quite similar to an internally heat-integrated distillation column (IHIDiC), they are actually very different in process structure, where heat integration is arranged between two different distillation columns in the former and the same distillation column in the latter. EHIDiC can, however, show advantages than IHIDiC in not only energy efficiency but also capital investment, and our research is aimed to exploit these potentials in terms of an ethylene distillation column separating a closing-boiling C2 mixture. The results obtained so far indicate explicitly the general static characteristics of the EHIDiC.