Using driving force based separation efficiency curves within an integrated system for process synthesis/design

Abstract This paper presents an integrated system for process synthesis and design. The integrated system combines three different algorithms, a driving force based separation process synthesis/design algorithm, a thermodynamic insights based process synthesis/design algorithm and an interactive MINLP solution algorithm. The combined integrated system follows a three-stage procedure. The driving force based algorithm and the thermodynamic insights based algorithm help to formulate the problem, generate a superstructure and determine a good (near optimal) initial feasible solution. The interactive MINLP solution algorithm determines the final optimal solution. Two application examples illustrating the main features of the integrated system are also presented.