ReviewInsight into pressure-swing distillation from azeotropic phenomenon to dynamic control

•Developments of pressure swing distillation process from all aspects are reviewed.•The limitations and challenges of pressure swing distillation are analyzed.•Quantitative structure property relationship can be used to explore the nature of pressure swing distillation.•Multi-component azeotrope separation and process intensification need further exploration.

Pressure-swing distillation (PSD) is widely used as an efficient method for separating pressure-sensitive azeotropic mixtures in industrial processes. Remarkably, PSD can achieve pure products without introducing a third component compared with extractive distillation and azeotropic distillation. Heat integration into PSD can save energy and reduce operating costs, thus relieving the continuous growth of energy consumption in the distillation industry. This review paper describes the development of this widely used distillation technique, including all of the main aspects related to thermodynamic analysis, Quantitative structure property relationship (QSPR), process design, process intensification, and dynamic control. Based on the foundation of research, further development of PSD is proposed for separating multi-component azeotropic mixtures and exploring the process design and dynamic control from QSPR, aiming at promoting the industrial application of this environmentally friendly and well-known separation technique from multi-scale analysis.

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