Recent Developments in Distillation Processes.
Distillation is often described as a mature technology that is well understood and established, no longer requiring research and development. This thinking is flawed, as distillation has come a long way in the past three decades and has even more room to grow. Defining a technology as mature should not be based on an understanding of the principles that govern its operation. A technology’s maturity should be based on how much further progress can be made and what remains to be learned. Distillation, by this definition, is not mature and still has plenty of room to advance. In the past three decades, distillation has advanced in: thermodynamics and thermodynamic efficiency process configurations process simulations process control column internal design column peripherals (e.g., heat transfer) reliability and availability operation in harsh environments diagnostics. Innovations in related fields such as flui...