In this article, a nonlinear adaptive control strategy is proposed for a multicomponent batch distillation column. The hybrid control scheme consists of a generic model controller (GMC) and a nonlinear adaptive state estimator (ASE). In the first part of the study, an adaptive observer is designed aiming to estimate the partially known parameters based on the measured compositions in the presence of process/predictor mismatch. The open-loop dynamic behavior of the developed ASE estimator is investigated under initialization error, disturbance, and uncertain parameters. In the subsequent part, the adaptive GMC-ASE controller (GMC control structure in conjunction with ASE estimator) has been synthesized for the example distillation column. A simulation-based comparative study has been conducted between the derived nonlinear GMC-ASE control algorithm and a gain-scheduled proportional integral (GSPI) law in terms of constant composition control. The proposed adaptive control scheme is shown to be quite promising due to the exponential error convergence capability of the ASE estimator in addition to the high-quality performance of the GMC controller. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.