LAUSR

Despite generating enormous interest, the full landscape of process intensification and multi-objective optimization (MOO) remains unexplored in the area of batch extractive distillation (BED). This paper is focused on articulating a mixed-integer nonlinear MOO problem to optimize both conventional and vapor recompressed BED, considering both existing and new plant scenarios. Process optimization of BED columns typically involves several technical, economic and environmental objectives that are conflicting in nature, which lead to many equally-good optimal solutions from the perspective of the given objectives. Here, the objective functions considered for BED optimization are minimization of total annual cost and CO2 emissions along with maximization of total annual production of two components that form an azeotropic mixture. To perform this optimization, a unique MOO strategy is adopted, which comprises of three steps. The first step deals with the selection of dominated decision variables through Taguc...