Dynamic Modelling and Model Predictive Control of a Binary Distillation Column

Distillation columns are widely used in the industry as separation units. Maintaining the composition of the distillate and bottom products of a distillation column in a desired range with applying control techniques is a difficult issue due to the nonlinear characteristics of the process and existence of multiple inputs and multiple outputs of the column. In this project, a dynamic simulation of a binary water-ethanol distillation column is done with MATLAB and represented as a Simulink subsystem as well. An MPC controller is performed for controlling the column products compositions using Simulink MPC Toolbox. Also, PI and PID controllers are tuned for this model. The control simulation results are represented for evaluating the performance of MPC controller compared to PI and PID controllers.