| abstract |
Light components are stripped from a multicomponent liquid feed mixture in a core type plate-fin heat exchanger (5) by heating and partially vaporizing the mixture during downward flow in one (25) of a plurality of multichannel flow passageways in the exchanger (5). The vapor thus formed flows upward and promotes vaporization of dissolved light components from the liquid to yield a liquid product substantially free of lighter components. The passageways (25) are disposed in indirect heat exchange with one or more additional groups of passageways (3, 29, 34), and heat for partial vaporization of the downward-flowing liquid feed mixture is provided by indirect heat exchange with a condensing process stream. Alternatively, this heat is provided by a bottoms stream recovered from distillation of the stripped liquid product withdrawn from the core type plate-fin heat exchanger. |