This paper describes a unique, proof of the principle test facility and the results of a study carried out to provide experimental evidence needed to properly asses the techno-economic feasibility of heat integrated distillation column (HIDiC) utilizing structured internals to enhance both heat and mass transfer. The plate-packing configuration using structured packing exhibited a superior performance in comparison with the HIDIC based on the plate-fin heat exchanger. Experimental evidence shows that the mass transfer and heat transfer efficiency increase pronouncedly with increasing throughput, which however is accompanied by an increasing pressure drop per stage. Simulation of an industrial scale plate-packing unit revealed that an even better performance can be obtained by increasing the volumetric thermal load via further optimization of internals. Crown Copyright (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier B.V, on behalf of The Institution of Chemical Engineers. All rights reserved.