Design and simulation of Kalman Filter for the estimation of tray temperatures in a binary distillation column

Batch distillation is a complex and higher order system, in which the batch operation mode is a difficult task for estimation and control. During the entire operation, the operating conditions varies over a wide range of values with respect to time, and thus, the estimator should be designed to deal with the time-varying nature of the batch column. The online estimation of a continuous process is not a difficult process, but for batch distillation, it is a difficult task as the process may introduce time-delay. Hence, a discrete Kalman filter for binary component distillation has been developed and simulated, which estimates the temperature of the different trays of the column to obtain product purity. Operating the temperature at the required levels will lead to purity of the end components. In this paper, authors concentrated on trays T3 and T6, as these trays play a vital role in estimating the purity of the top and bottom products.