separation of ternary mixtures by multi-effect distillation

The separation of ternary mixtures by distillation is very common and widely used in the industry, but distillation columns are considered to be one of the most energy-consuming equipment. therefore, heat integration of distillation columns is mandatory in terms of cost, energy consumption and environmental issues. direct and indirect processes are two well-known arrangements for separating ternary mixtures. however, because both distillation columns have condenser and reboiler, their energy consumption is high. in this article, the multi-effect method is used for heat integration in which one column is placed at a high pressure and the other column is placed at a low pressure. in this way, the condenser of the high-pressure column and the reboiler of the low-pressure column are coupled together. the results show that the direct process with heat integration has reduced the energy usage of the process by 93% compared to the indirect process without heat integration.