Condition Number As A Quantitative Measure Of Flexibility In A Process

Abstract Sustainable and green industrial chemical processes enhance the profitability, production of merchandises, inherent safety, and minimize the generation of waste. Among them, profitability, and especially inherent safety, can be characterized indirectly through the controllability and flexibility of the processes. Although several indices have been proposed to measure these parameters, the flexibility index and the controllability measured by the condition number stand out. However, these two indicators are usually quantified individually, losing information inherent to the synergies by the link between profitability and process safety. The present work aims to find a quantitative parameter, similar to the condition number, to simultaneously measure the flexibility and controllability of the processes with the purpose of generating a simple measurement of the inherent safety of the processes. This indicator can be applied for designing processes enhancing their profitable, green and sustainable dimensions. To show the advantages of the use of the metric proposed, the results binary and multicomponent reactive distillation are evaluated, showing that the condition number measuring controllability at low frequencies can be related to flexibility. This results in a double indicator which can measure both controllability and flexibility simultaneously.