In light of rising energy prices and in order to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases, it is essential to increase the efficiency of distillation processes. As such, this research project focuses on the evaluation of innovative energy-integrated distillation processes in terms of energetic, economic and environmental criteria in the context of a developing chemical industry. Depending on the specific separation task, different improvement measures such as thermal coupling, heat integration or the use of heat pumps can be considered in addition to various column configurations for separation into multiple fractions. Accordingly, the most efficient process alternative must be evaluated from a wide variety of options. To achieve this, shortcut screening based on rigorous thermodynamics is applied in conjunction with rigorous optimization.
