Chemical Reactor Network Targeting and Integration: An Optimization Approach

While synthesis strategies are well developed for energy integration and separation systems, relatively little work has been done in synthesizing reactor networks. This is due to the complex and nonlinear behavior of the reacting system, coupled with the combinatorial aspects inherent in all synthesis problems. This paper provides a brief summary of work to date in this area, focusing on targeting approaches for reactor network synthesis As with energy integration, reactor network targeting seeks to describe the performance of the network without its explicit construction. Once this description has been obtained, a network is then determined that is guaranteed to match this target. To achieve these objectives, we rely on recent concepts of attainable regions and extend these to simple optimization formulations. With these formulations, network targets can be achieved for isothermal and nonisothermal systems with complex kinetics Moreover, these optimization formulations can easily be coupled to other process systems such as heat integration and separation sequences. As a result, they provide a framework for integrated process design. This strategy is illustrated with detailed examples. Finally, limitations of the current approach are summarized and topics for future work are outlined

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