Entrainer selection for pressure swing batch distillation

The feasibility of the separation of binary homoazeotropes with pressure swing batch distillation by the application of an entrainer is studied. The feasibility studies are based on the assumption of maximal separation and on the analysis of batch distillation/stripping regions and the vessel path in the residue curve map of the ternary mixture. The following configurations are investigated: batch rectifier, batch stripper, double column batch rectifier and double column batch stripper. Rules for the selection of an entrainer are suggested