Research progress of design and energy-saving of distillation column

Distillation is one of the most energy consumption processes in chemical industry.The research progress of three different types of distillation column is presented.Research on conventional distillation is still mainly its algorithms and its role in chemical engineering education.Reactive distillation and dividing-wall column are the hot spots in recent years,such as the model of reactive distillation and solving methods.Dividing-wall column is a new concept not well-established,but can save equipment investment obviously and has a good energy-saving prospect,especially in its combination with reactive distillation.Future study directions of distillation columns is presented.