Economic feasibility of a novel energy efficient middle vessel batch distillation to reduce energy use

It has long been recognized that the highly irreversible operation of batch distillation involves more wastage of energy compared to continuous flow distillation. For boosting its energy efficiency, the middle vessel batch distillation (MVBD) column has been invented. In this paper, a rigorous model for an MVBD process for the separation of a ternary hydrocarbon system is developed to simulate its transient behavior. In order to obtain the products at their maximum achievable purities, we device the two operating policies for the representative configuration.