Internal thermally coupled distillation column（ITCDIC）is a frontier of high-efficient energy-saving distillation technology. A novel APC strategy based on generic model control（GMC）was therefore proposed to overcome the increasing nonlinearity with increasing product purity

which was difficult to deal with by the traditional linear control strategy. The basic algorithm of GMC and the application to ITCDIC were presented. Also the parameter preference method was given. The benzene-toluene system was adopted as the illustration example. The detailed comparative researches were carried out between GMC and traditional PID controller. The control performance of both servo control under step disturbance in feed composition and feed flow rate and fix-value control under step changes in set-point proves the efficiency of this proposed APC strategy for high purity ITCDIC process.