Optimal operation strategy of batch vacuum distillation for sulfuric acid recycling process

Vacuum distillation techniques are widely used in food, biological, pharmaceutical, and wastewater treatment industries. Because of its operation at low temperatures, vacuum distillation prevents the thermal decomposition of materials and alleviates corrosion processes; however, condenser size can be dramatically increased because of reductions in mean temperature differences under the vacuum operation. In batch vacuum distillation processes, vapor generation rate and mean temperature differences are changed with time. In view of these characteristics of batch operation, this paper suggests a novel methodology to minimize the condenser size in batch vacuum distillation processes. The target process is a sulfuric acid recycling system in semiconductor manufacturing plants. In this paper, an equation-oriented dynamic model is established and optimization problem is formulated. By solving the nonlinear programming problem, the condenser size is dramatically reduced when operation time is fixed. In contrast, operation time is greatly shortened when the installed condenser surface area is fixed.