Studies in chemical process design and synthesis: Part V: A simple heuristic method for systematic synthesis of initial sequences for multicomponent separations

A simple heuristic method for the systematic synthesis of initial sequences for multicomponent separations is proposed and applied to a number of synthesis problems which have been solved previously using other methods. Based on reported costs, it is shown that the initial sequences synthesized for the test problems by the new heuristic method are cheaper than those obtained by other ordered heuristic methods. These initial sequences are also either identical to or at most a few percents higher in costs than those optimum sequences obtained by other algorithmic, heuristic‐algorithmic and heuristic‐evolutionary methods. The new method is straightforward to apply by hand and it does not require any mathematical background and computational skill from the user.