Fundamental modeling and simulation of a binary continuous distillation column

Distillation columns are important unit operations in chemical process plants. This paper reviews some techniques of modeling and simulation of distillation columns and describes a model for a lab-scale binary continuous distillation column. The focus is on the dynamic behavior of the product compositions under feed disturbances. The simulation results show that the composition responses to disturbances are close to the response of a first order system. The response to change in feed composition has larger gain than the response to change in feed flow rate. The paper also compares the simulation results with some of other works.