Adami, MommeMommeAdamiEspert, DennisDennisEspertSkiborowski, MirkoMirkoSkiborowski2025-08-182025-08-182025-12-19Separation and purification technology 377: 134463 (2025)https://hdl.handle.net/11420/57002Several thousand distillation columns are industrially employed for various separations, accounting for a substantial share of the industrial energy demand. In order to reduce their energy requirements various means for energy integration, such as direct heat integration, multi-effect distillation, thermal coupling, or vapor recompression can be applied. Considering these options and combinations of these, several hundred possible process configurations can be designed even for separations into three product streams, while the choice for a best option depends strongly on the specific separation task and system properties. In order to enable a reliable case-specific evaluation, which avoids simplified heuristics or simplified thermodynamics, this article presents a computationally efficient, algorithmic framework for a multi-criteria evaluation of more than 750 energy-integrated distillation sequences for multicomponent separations in three product streams. The framework employs thermodynamically sound pinch-based shortcut models that do not rely on constant relative volatility and constant molar overflow assumptions, making it applicable to nonideal and azeotropic mixtures. Based on the minimum energy duties and the respective flowsheet information, classical estimation methods for equipment sizes, operating costs, and capital investment, are employed. Several case studies demonstrate the framework's applicability to azeotropic systems, its computational efficiency benefits that enable performing sensitivity analyses for varied process, thermodynamic, and economic scenarios.en1383-58662025Elsevierhttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Distillation | Dividing Wall Column | Heat integration | Process intensification | Shortcut screening | Thermal coupling | Vapor recompressionTechnology::660: Chemistry; Chemical Engineering::660.6: BiotechnologyTechnology::621: Applied PhysicsJournal Articlehttps://doi.org/10.15480/882.1577410.1016/j.seppur.2025.13446310.15480/882.15774Journal Article