Noor Asma Fazli Abdul Samad

Methodology Development of a Flexible and Operable Energy Integrated Distillation Columns

This paper presents the development of a new methodology that will enable to design flexible and operable energy integrated distillation columns (EIDCs). Distillation is the primary separation process used in the industrial chemical processing. Although it has many advantages, however the main drawback concerns with the large energy requirement, which significantly influence overall plant profitability. The large energy requirement of these processes can be reduced by using energy integration. Therefore, a new methodology that will enable to design flexible and operable of EIDCs has been proposed in this study. This can be successfully obtained by implementing the integration of process design and control (IPDC) methodology. The design of EIDCs can be further improved to ensure that the design is more cost efficient, flexible, controllable, and operable. This can be achieved by developing a new model-based IPDC method, which includes cost optimality and controllability at the early design stage, which is also the main objective of this study. It is expected that this new methodology will help engineers to solve EIDCs design problem in a systematic and efficient manner. Methodology Development