Process intensification in ternary distillation via comparative grassroots and retrofit designs: A case study of distilling an industrial multicomponent C6 alkane mixture in caprolactam processing

•A systematic process intensification method via retrofitting the existing columns is presented.•A complicated industrial multicomponent C6 alkane mixture is studied•Potential beneficial ternary distillation processes are listed and assessed•Grassroots design facilitate retrofit proposals through comparative analysis•Energy inefficiency sources caused by remixing and feed mismatch are investigated A systematic process intensification method via comparative grassroots and retrofit designs for distillation is proposed. Restricting to the ternary system, a case study of multicomponent C6 alkane separation in caprolactam processing is considered. The existing benchmark flowsheet of direct sequence (DS) features high economic cost but low thermodynamic efficiency. Through the investigation of the composition profile, two middle component remixing peaks and a large feed mismatch are diagnosed as the reasons of inefficiency. To achieve process intensification, potential candidates like side stream column (SSC) and dividing wall column (DWC) are enumerated and evaluated in the grassroots design step. Although DWC performs the best in thermodynamic efficiency, SSC is more preferred for retrofit as its structure is simple but has similar performance. To maximally reuse the existing equipment, two retrofit proposals of either indirect sequence (IS) or SSC are provided based on the grassroots design results. Among them, retrofitted SSC is recommended for long expected lifespan situation, while IS is more suitable for a short one. It is recommended that the proposed process intensification procedure can be extended to other similar processes or systems with more components, through enumerating and comparing the several best but similar grassroots designs with benchmark process. [Display omitted]