Multieffect distillation for multicomponent separation

摘要

An efficient multieffect distillation process separates multicomponent mixtures containing three or more components into product streams each enriched in one of the components. The distillation process consists of at least two distillation columns that are thermally linked. A mixture stream that can be the given feed or a stream recovered from another distillation column and containing three or more components is fed to one of the thermally linked distillation columns and at least two submixture streams are produced from this distillation column and transferred to other distillation columns for further distillation. At least one of the submixture streams is transferred to the other thermally linked distillation column. One submixture stream is lean in the least volatile component of the mixture feed and the other submixture stream is lean in the most volatile component of the mixture feed.