The Influence of Heat Transfer Irreversibilities on the Optimal Performance of Diabatic Distillation Columns

A distillation column with the possibility of heat exchange on every tray (a fully diabatic column) is optimized in the sense of minimizing its total entropy production. This entropy production counts the interior losses due to heat and mass flow as well as the entropy generated in the heat exchangers. It is observed that the optimal heating distribution, i.e. the heat exchange required on each tray, is essentially the same for all trays in the stripping and rectification sections, respectively. This makes a column design with consecutive interior heat exchangers and only one exterior supply for each of the two sections very appealing. The result is only slightly dependent on the heat transfer law considered. In the limit of an infinite number of trays even this column with resistance to transfer of heat becomes reversible.