Optimize distillation columns

The chemical process industries' ongoing quest to improve energy utilization, reduce capital costs, and boost operating flexibility is spurring increasing attention to distillation column optimization during design. A good understanding of mass-transfer and pressure-drop fundamentals will enable the column designers to independently judge vendor offerings and effectively determine the optimal equipment design. This article details three optimization goals: maximizing theoretical stages per height of section or column; minimizing pressure drop per theoretical stage; and maximizing the operational range, turn-down, or turn-up.