AN APPROACH TOWARDS THE DESIGN OF A PETLYUK COLUMN USING HYSYS

Mustafa, M. Abbas1 and Wilson, J.A.2

1

Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Khartoum,

dr.mustafa.abbas@gmail.com
2
Chemical and Environmental Engineering,
Faculty of Engineering, the University of Nottingham, United Kingdom
Received Sep. 2011, accepted after revision Jan. 2012

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ABSTRACT
Distillation is considered one of the oldest unit operations. Throughout the years, chemical
engineering designers have been working hard to reduce the energy consumption of columns
which has led to the development of many non-conventional methods. Of particular
importance are thermally coupled distillation columns (TCDC) which offer large savings in
capital and operating cost. The main concern, when contemplating the use of TCDC, is the
unavailability of easy and well established design procedures. Furthermore, some steady-state
simulators have given convergence problems particularly to establish the first solution. Thus,
this paper presents an approach for the design of the more complex Petlyuk column based on
dynamic simulation using HYSYS.
Keywords: Petlyuk column, simulation, design, HYSYS

Sudan Engineering Society Journal,

March 2012, Volume 58; No.1

35

AN APPROACH TOWARDS THE DESIGN OF A PETLYUK COLUMN USING HYSYS

`
INTRODUCTION
shown in Figure 3. The main aim of the preDistillation is a mature and well established
fractionator is to send all of the light
technology; however there is still the problem
component and heavy component to the
of high energy consumption. Since energy
distillate and bottoms respectively, but allow
consumption is directly related to vapour flow
the component of intermediate volatility to be
within the column, reduction in energy
split between the overhead and bottoms.
consumption is possible through the reduction
Products from the pre-fractionator are directed
of the vapour flow. This leads to a reduction in
to appropriate trays in the main column. The
the column diameter, with the use of a smaller
main column then produces the lightest
reboiler, which leads to a saving in capital cost.
component as its distillate, the heaviest
However, effect of reducing vapour flow on
component as bottom product and allows the
product quality needs to be considered.
middle component to be drawn off as a side
stream with a very high purity. It is clear from
1.1 Thermally Coupled Columns
the figure that only one condenser and reboiler
A number of non-conventional arrangements
are needed. As for reflux and boilup for the preexist which use thermal coupling. The most
fractionator, they are obtained from the main
important incentive in the application of TCDCs
column. Theoretical studies have shown that
is that the side streams are drawn/added at the
Petlyuk columns can save, on average, around
most thermodynamically favourable points so
30% of energy costs compared with a
as to reduce the total energy consumption.
conventional arrangement [3].
TCDC may be divided into 3 groups:
A further advantage of the Petlyuk column is
1. Direct thermally coupled system
that it could be constructed in a single shell
with an internal dividing wall as shown in Figure
Direct thermally coupled systems are also
4. This offer significant savings in field
referred to as systems with a side-rectifier. An
construction costs [3]. Despite all the
example for a ternary mixture is shown in
advantages offered by thermally coupled
Figure 1. An impure vapour side-stream is
systems, designers have been reluctant to use
withdrawn from the first column, below the
those kinds of systems. This reluctance can be
feed tray, and purified in a side-rectifier, the
attributed mainly to potential operational
bottom of which is returned to the main
problems
due
to
the
bi-directional
column [1].
interconnecting streams The Nigerian textile
2. Indirect thermally coupled system
industrial sector has been struggling for survival
Indirect thermally coupled systems are also
Condenser
Condenser
known as systems with a side-stripper. An
example for a ternary mixture is shown in
Product A
Figure 2. An impure liquid side-stream is
Product B
withdrawn from the first column above the
Main column
Side-rectifier
feed tray and purified in a side-stripper. The
Feed
Vapour
top vapour product of the side-stripper is
A,B,C
returned to the first column [1].
Liquid

3. Fully thermally coupled system (also

known as the Petlyuk column)
A Petlyuk column for a ternary mixture consists
of a pre-fractionator and a main column as

36

Product C
Reboiler

Figure 1: Direct thermally coupled column

Sudan Engineering Society Journal,

March 2012, Volume 58; No.1

Mustafa, M. Abbas and Wilson, J.A.

1.2 Simulation Package - HYSYS

Condenser

Product A

Vapour

Main
column
Feed

Liquid

Side-stripper

A, B, C

Product B
Reboiler

Product
C
Reboiler

Figure 2: Indirect thermally coupled column

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

Condenser

Pre-fractionator

Product A

Vapour
Main column
Liquid
Product B
Vapour

A, B, C

Liquid
Product C
Reboiler

Figure 3: Petlyuk Column

Condenser

A Feed
B
C

Aspen HYSYS [5] provides an integrated

engineering environment in which all
applications work inside a common
operating environment. It also has the
advantage of been flexible, robust and
interactive, thus making the process
simulator very powerful and very easy to
use. One of the most important benefits of
this package is its dynamic modelling option.
Once the model is set, the evaluation of the
response of each operation and the flow
sheet interaction could be used to provide
insight into the process.

Internal Dividing wall

C
Reboiler

Figure 4: The dividing wall column

Sudan Engineering Society Journal,

Work on thermally coupled columns started

mainly by focusing on determining design
parameters for minimum reflux ratios.
Glinos and Malone [2] suggested using the
minimum total vapour generated by
reboilers as a base for comparing between
different arrangements. They then proposed
useful expressions for calculating the
minimum vapour rates (at minimum reflux),
but no approach at that stage was
developed to determine the number of trays
needed in each column. Finn [6] also
established a procedure for calculating the
condenser/ reboiler loads at minimum reflux
ratio. The procedure developed again lacked
the initial design parameters required for a
rigorous simulation. Alatiqui and Luyben [7]
performed a more formal study of the
design of indirect thermally coupled
columns. They found that better energy
consumption could be achieved for feeds
containing less than 20% of the intermediate
component. The study was based on a
steady-state model using a trial and error
procedure to determine the optimal design
parameters. Throughout their study
convergence problems were faced in some
cases.
March 2012, Volume 58; No.1

37

AN APPROACH TOWARDS THE DESIGN OF A PETLYUK COLUMN USING HYSYS

`
Cerda and Westerberg [8] developed shortcut methods for the determination of
Stream 1
operating parameters for thermally coupled
columns; however Glinos and Malone [2]
A
think that the algorithm is unnecessarily
complicated. Triantafylou and Smith [3] then
Feed 1
Column 1
produced a design model which provides a
B
basis for investigating the degrees of
freedom for a minimised overall vapour flow
Stream 2
(at a given reflux ratio) or number of plates.
It also provides a good initialisation for
rigorous simulation.

Ramrez-Corona et al. [9] proposed use of a

shortcut model for optimum design of
Petlyuk and dividing-wall distillation
systems; however, no rigorous calculations
are presented. Kim [10] further proposed a
semi-rigorous method for design of Petlyuk
column, nevertheless results provide only
basic information which could be fed into
commercial software. As an alternative
approach, Hernandez and Jimenez [1] used a
dynamic model to overcome the problem of
convergence. They first started by obtaining
a design for a direct conventional column as
shown in Figure 5. The final design of a
direct thermally coupled column is then
obtained as follows:
1 / Total number of stages in the first
column is equal to the number of stages of
column 1 plus the number of stages in
section 4 of column 2.
2 / Total number of stages in the siderectifier (Figure 1) is equal to the number of
stages in section 3 of column 2.
The position of the feed stream is fixed and
the side-draw is drawn from the bottom of
column 1 (corresponds, in the main column
of the direct thermally coupled system, to
the point between section 2 in column 1 and
the added section 4 of column 2).

38

n-pentane

Upper Main
Column
n-hexane

n-hexane

Lower Main
Column
n-heptane

Figure 5: Direct sequence

Once the design is obtained, the procedure

continues by controlling the main column, while
varying the flowrate of the side-draw, until the
minimum duty is achieved. In this method the
design is fixed and although Hernandez and
Jimenez [1] have suggested adjustment of the
initial design after steady-state occurs (due to
the final composition of the products calculated
not matching the specifications of those
products), but no method to follow was given.
That means that the column could be overtrayed or even the side-draw is not taken from
the optimum tray, at the main column, i.e.
where the maximum concentration of the
intermediate component occurs. So a
procedure has to be developed that looks more
deeply into those issues, and thus gives the
maximum savings in energy.
3. CASE STUDY
The feed (Table 1) enters the pre-fractionator
and the hexane is split between the light-key
component (pentane) at the top and the heavykey component (heptane) at the bottom. It is
then drawn out as a very pure component from
one of the trays of the main column as shown in
Figure 6. The four interconnecting streams
between the two columns mean that
establishing a steady-state design is particularly
challenging.

Sudan Engineering Society Journal,

March 2012, Volume 58; No.1

Mustafa, M. Abbas and Wilson, J.A.

The design procedure followed could be

summarised as follows:

Condenser

Pre-fractionator
Stream 3
Stream A1

Feed 1

n-pentane
Main Column

Stream A

Liquid

Stream B

Stream 4
n-hexane

Stream B1
Stream 5
n-heptane
Reboiler

Figure 6: Petlyuk column: Case study

To have a feel of the problems faced by the

designer, one should try to attempt answering
the following questions:
1. How many plates are there in the prefractionator?
2. How many plates are there in the main
column?
3. On which plate does the feed enter the
pre-fractionator?
4. On which plate do both feeds to the main
column enter?
5. From which plate in the main column is the
side-draw taken?
6. How much is the distillate rate and the
reflux ratio in the main column?

i. Simplify Petlyuk column as shown in Figure

7 (Similar to Hernandez and Jimenez [1]
approach for direct thermally coupled
columns)
ii. Apply short-cut methods in HYSYS to obtain
the initial design parameters of column 1, 2
and 3.
iii. Perform rigorous simulation of column 1
(pre-fractionator) to obtain data for
streams A and B (2 side-draws from the
main column).
iv. Perform rigorous simulation of the main
column with its feed streams been streams
A1 and B1 but without the side draws from
the main column been fed back into the
pre-fractionator.
v. Couple the pre-fractionator with the main
column using the dynamic facility.
vi. Check the temperature profile to see if the
columns are over-trayed.
vii. Check the composition profile to see
whether stream A1 and B1 are entering the
main column at the point which best
matches the composition of those streams.
viii. Reduce number of trays in main column
and repeat steps (vi and vii) until profiles
are acceptable (no redundant stages).
n-pentane
Stream 1

A case study was chosen from the literature [1]

using feed specified in Table 1.
Table 1: Specification of feed
Flowrate ( kgmol/h )
Pressure ( kPa )
Temperature ( o C )
mole fraction of n-pentane
mole fraction of n-hexane
mole fraction of n-heptane

Feed
45.4
101.33
58
0.33
0.33
0.33

A
Feed 1

Column 2
Upper Main
Column
nhexane

Column 1
B

n-hexane
Stream 2
Column Lower Main
3
Column
n-heptane

Figure 7: Simplification of Petlyuk column

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March 2012, Volume 58; No.1

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AN APPROACH TOWARDS THE DESIGN OF A PETLYUK COLUMN USING HYSYS

`
4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
column 2 and 3 respectively. The purity of
the light and heavy key components was
The first step for simulating the fully
specified as 99%. The results of the short-cut
thermally coupled columns, also known as
method for column 2 and 3, together with
the Petlyuk columns, is to simplify it by
the light and heavy key components
dividing it into 3 columns using a
specified in each case as shown in Tables 3
conventional arrangement as shown in
and 4.
Figure 7 [3]. Column 1 roughly splits hexane

equally between the top and bottom

product. Stream 1 is then sent to column 2
where pentane is recovered as the top
product and the hexane as the bottom
product. The same happens to Stream 3 but
hexane is separated as the distillate while
heptane is separated as the bottom product
of column 3. Column 2 in this simplification
represents the upper section of the main
column, while Column 3 represents the
lower section of the main column.
4.1 Short-cut simulation
The short-cut method is then implemented
in HYSYS to get the initial design parameters
for the three columns. For column 1, the
light-key component was specified as nhexane while n-heptane was specified as the
heavy-key component. The purity of hexane
in the top product was set to 33%, and that
of the n-heptane in the bottoms to 65% just
to give roughly an equal split of hexane
between the products. As for the reflux
ratios, they were set to 1.3 times the
minimum reflux ratio. The results are shown
in Table 2.
Table 2: Results of the short-cut method for
column 1
Distillate flowrate ( kgmol/h )
Bottoms flowrate ( kgmol/h )
Number of trays
Feed tray location
Reflux ratio

22.56
22.84
12
10
0.65

The same procedure was followed for the

other two columns using the rigorous data
for column 1 overheads/ bottoms as feed to

40

Table 3: Results of the short-cut method for

column 2
Light key component
Pentane
Heavy key component
Hexane
Flow rate of Stream 1 ( kgmol/h )
22.56
Distillate flowrate ( kgmol/h )
15.19
Bottoms flowrate ( kgmol/h )
7.37
Number of trays
21
Feed tray location
9
Reflux ratio
1
Table 4: Results of the short-cut method for
column 3
Light key component
Hexane
Heavy key component
Heptane
Flow rate of Stream 2 ( kgmol/h )
22.84
Distillate flowrate ( kgmol/h )
7.69
Bottoms flowrate ( kgmol/h )
15.15
Number of trays
23
Feed tray location
13
Reflux ratio
2.86
4.2 Rigorous simulation
To simulate the pre-fractionator some more
information is needed about the flow rate and the
composition of streams A and B (shown in Figures
6 & 7), which are basically the 2 side-draws from
the main column. Thus, rigorous data of streams A
and B (Figure 7) were obtained for Column 1
previously simulated. The results of streams A and
B are shown in Table 5.
Since all the information needed to simulate the
pre-fractionator was available, the prefractionator was simulated rigorously using
HYSYS. For the main column, the number of trays
in column 2 and column 3 gave the total number
of trays in the main column. The position of the

Sudan Engineering Society Journal,

March 2012, Volume 58; No.1

Mustafa, M. Abbas and Wilson, J.A.

feeds to column 2 and 3 gave the position of the

feed streams to the main column. The main
column was then simulated rigorously with its
feed streams been streams A1 and B1 (Figure 6),
already simulated from the pre-fractionator, but
without the side draws from the main column
been fed back into the pre-fractionator. The final
and most exciting step then was to couple the
pre-fractionator and the main column. Streams A
and B were specified as recycle streams by adding
a recycle operation. The program was then
allowed to run with products specified at 95%
purity. A new solution was reached as shown in
Table 6.

Stream B drawn from main column

at tray number
Stream 4 drawn from main column
at tray number
Reboiler duty ( kJ/h )
Flowrate of stream A1 ( kgmol/h )
Composition of stream A1
Mole fraction of n-pentane
Mole fraction of n-hexane
Mole fraction of n-heptane
Flowrate of stream B1 ( kgmol/h )
Composition of stream B1
Mole fraction of n-pentane
Mole fraction of n-hexane
Mole fraction of n-heptane

33
20
2.07106
35.55
0.4569
0.5431
4.0710-5
67.35
0.0892
0.606
0.3048

Table 5: Rigorous data for stream A and B (Fig. 6)

Stream
Flow rate ( kgmol/h )
Temperature ( oC )
Concentration of pentane
Concentration of hexane
Concentration of heptane

A
22
57
0.26
0.74
0.0

The next step was then to check the temperature

profile to see if the columns were over-trayed and
then to check that stream A1 and B1 are entering
the main column at the point which best matches
the composition of those streams. For the number
of stages in the pre-fractionator, it remained
unchanged at 12 stages, but the number of stages
on the main column reduced from 44 stages to 27
stages (much more smother profile is produced
with no redundant stages). The best match
between Stream A1 and the column was found,
by examining the composition profile, at stage
number 6 and as for Stream B1 the best match
was found at stage number 20. Furthermore,
more cases were generated by changing the flow
rate of Stream A. The results are shown in Table 7.
It is clear from the results that the duty is directly
proportional to the flow rate of stream A.

B
35.5
76
0.08
0.73
0.18

Table 6: Results of rigorous simulation of Petlyuk

column
Total number of stages in pre12
fractionator
Total number of stages in main
44
column
Stream A1 entering main column at
9
tray number
Stream A drawn from main column
9
at tray number
Stream B1 entering the main column
33
at tray number

Table 7: Comparison of different Petlyuk column cases

Flowrate of
stream
A
(kgmol/h)

Reboiler duty
( E+06 kJ/h)

The tray at which

Stream A1 enters
(a)

The tray at which

Stream B1 enters
(b)

Number
of
stages between
a&b

14
16
18
20
22
24
26
28
30

1.71
1.87
1.95
2.07
2.27
2.39
2.54
2.68
3

6
6
6
5
5
5
5
5
5

21
18
19
19
19
18
18
19
17

15
12
13
14
14
13
13
14
12

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March 2012, Volume 58; No.1

Total
number
of trays
28
25
25
25
25
24
24
24
22

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AN APPROACH TOWARDS THE DESIGN OF A PETLYUK COLUMN USING HYSYS

`
converging complex column configurations.
The convergence of the Petlyuk column was
Although the design procedures established does
the biggest challenge to the author and it
showed that the package was flexible
enough that it managed to solve this
complicated problem. On the other hand,
the savings in energy offered by the Petlyuk
column are clear from the previous table.
The energy consumption of the conventional
columns is 2.24752E+06 kJ/h, to obtain
products with the same specifications. So
savings in energy could be seen for flowrates
of 20 kgmol/h and lower as shown in Table
8, however this has to be traded off versus
increase in the number of trays.
Figure 5.4.1 : Temprature profile of the main column
( before reducing the excess trays )

100

95

90

85

80

Temperature ( C )

75

70

65

60

55

50

Table 8: Comparison of energy consumption of

Petlyuk column compared to conventional
distillation methods for flow rates of 20kgmol/h
and lower

45

40

35

43

41

39

37

35

33

31

29

7.7 %

27

2.07445

25

20

23

13.41 %

21

1.94611

19

18

17

16.61 %

15

1.87426

13

16

21.8 %

11

1.70784

14

(kgmol/h)

Percentage of energy
saved compared to the
conventional methods

Duty
(E+06
kJ/h)

30

Flow rate

Number of stages

(a)

Figure 5.4.2 : Temperature profile of the main column

( after removing the inefficient trays )
100

90

60

50

40

30

5. CONCLUSION

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

Number of stages

The use of thermally coupled distillation columns

has shown significant energy savings compared to
conventional distillation methods with values of
up to 22 % for a Petlyuk column in agreement
with Glinos et. al. [2]. The dynamic simulation
approach to thermally coupled columns has also

42

70

Temperature ( C )

Figures 8 and 9 show the change in the

temperature and composition profile for the
following case: Flow rate of stream A is equal to
22 kgmol/h, flow rate of stream B is equal to
35.5 kgmol/h and number of stages is equal to
27. Tray inefficiency is clearly evident with a
constant temperature/composition profile
existing across sections of the overtrayed
column.

80

(b)
Figure 8: Temperature profile of the main
column (a) with the column overtrayed, and
(b) after removing the inefficient trays

Sudan Engineering Society Journal,

March 2012, Volume 58; No.1

Figure 5.4.3 : Composition profile of hexane

( with the column overtrayed Mustafa,
)

M. Abbas and Wilson, J.A.

costs, however it provides an idea of the

savings in energy offered by those columns and

takes the designer towards an optimum.
Furthermore, it was clear from the cases
investigated that the number of trays between
the positions of the 2 feed trays in the main
column roughly equalled the number of trays in
the pre-fractionator. Thus the pre-fractionator
could be constructed with the main column in a
single shell with an internal dividing wall. This is of
particular importance due to the fact that the
procedure already established for designing the
Petlyuk column could be extended for designing
the ultimate Divided-wall column.

0.9

0.8

Mole fraction of hexane

0.7

0.6

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

References

0.1

43

41

39

37

35

33

31

29

27

25

23

21

19

17

15

13

11

Number of stages

(a)

Figure 5.4.4 : Composition profile of hexane in the main column

( after removing the inefficent trays )
1

0.9

0.8

Mole fraction of hexane

0.7

0.6

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0
1

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

Number of stages

(b)
Figure 9: Composition profile of hexane in the
main column (a) with the column overtrayed and
(b) after removing the inefficient trays

proved very successful as a method for

obtaining an initial design. HYSYS proved
very successful at not give a true optimum
design, due to the inconsideration of capital
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1. Hernandez, S., A. Jimenez, Design of optimal

Thermally-coupled Distillation systems using
a dynamic model, Trans I Chem E, 74, 357362, 1996.
2. Glinos, K., M.F. Malone, Optimality regions
for complex column alternatives in
distillation systems, Chem. Eng. Res. Des.,
66, 229-240, 1998.
3. Triantafyllou, C., R. Smith, The design and
optimisation of fully thermally coupled
distillation columns, Trans IChemE, 70, 118132, 1992.
4. Hernndez, S., J. G. Segovia-Hernndez, V.
Rico-Ramrez,
Thermodynamically
equivalent distillation schemes to the
Petlyuk column for ternary mixtures,
Energy, .31, 2176-2183, 2006.
5. Aspen HYSYS 3.2, Aspen Technology, Inc.,
Ten Canal Park, Cambridge, MA 02141, USA,
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6. Finn, A. J., Consider thermally coupled
distillation, Chem. Eng. Prog., 10 41-45,
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7. Alatiqui, I. M., W. L. Luyben, Alternative
distillation configurations for separating
ternary mixtures with small concentrations
of intermediate in the feed, Ind. Eng. Chem.
Proc. Des. Dev., 24, 500-506, 1985.
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AN APPROACH TOWARDS THE DESIGN OF A PETLYUK COLUMN USING HYSYS

`
8. Cerda, K., M. F. Malone, Shortcut methods
distillation systems using a shortcut
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9. Ramrez-Corona, N., A. Jimnez-Gutirrez,
thermally coupled distillation columns using
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Rico-Ramrez,
a semi-rigorous model, Comput. Chem.
Optimum design of Petlyuk and divided-wall
Eng., 29, 1555-1559.

44

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March 2012, Volume 58; No.1