Dynamic control of liquid-only transfer Kaibel dividing-wall column

The liquid-only transfer configuration widens the possibility of industrial application of DWCs, especially for the few industrial implementations of the Kaibel dividing-wall column (KDWC). This work focuses on the dynamic control of liquid-only transfer KDWC (LTS-KDWC) to separate a four-alcohol system. First, a composition control structure (CS1) is proposed and the numerical results show that CS1 could handle +/- 10% disturbances in the feed flow rate and composition except that a large purity deviation is discovered for the product of ethanol. Then temperature-control structure (CS2) is proposed, and the dynamic control performance illustrates that product purity is stabilized and returns to the designed value quickly. However, larger disturbances cannot be handled by CS2. Consequently, a temperature difference control scheme (CS3) is further proposed based on CS2. CS3 provides better control than CS2 and the integral absolute error in CS3 is smaller than that in CS2 as facing +/- 15% disturbances. (c) 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.