| Abstract
| - For a separation system producing multicomponent products, streamsplitting besides streambypassing has long been recognized as a technique that always reducestotal mass load (TML)and should always be preferred over sequential processing.Nevertheless, our preliminaryanalysis has indicated that stream splitting can increase TML undercertain circumstances which,in turn, may increase the cost of the system; furthermore, even whenstream splitting reducesTML, it may increase the mass load of one or more difficult separationsand increase the cost ofthe system. An exhaustive parametric study of a class ofrelatively simple problems is performedin this work to reveal the impact of stream splitting on the sequencingof separation systems.Some significant observations have been made, and some guidelineshave been established forevolutionarily improving separation system sequencing involving streamsplitting.
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