Development of a Conceptual Framework for Evaluating the Flexibility of Future Chemical Processes

Jisiwei Luo,Jonathan Moncada,Andrea Ramirez

doi:10.1021/acs.iecr.1c03874

Abstract

Incorporating (operational) flexibility into process design has been a key approach to cope with uncertainties. The increasing penetration of renewables and the need for developing new low-carbon technologies will increase the demand for flexibility in chemical processes. This paper presents a state-of-the-art review focusing on the origin, definition, and elements of flexibility in the chemical engineering context. The article points out a significant overlap in terminology and concepts, making it difficult to understand and compare flexibility potential and constraints among studies. Further, the paper identifies a lack of available metrics for assessing specific types of flexibility and the need for developing indicators for exploring the potential flexibility of novel chemical processes. The paper proposes a classification of flexibility types and provides an overview of design strategies that have been adopted so far to enable different types of flexibility. Finally, it offers a conceptual framework that can support designers to evaluate specific types of flexibility in early-stage assessments of novel chemical processes.

Highlights

Chemical companies adopt emerging technologies or adapt existing technologies to maintain or improve their competitiveness
This paper aimed to develop a conceptual framework of flexibility that can serve as a guideline for the design and assessment of novel flexible chemical processes
We identified significant overlaps in terminology and concepts, resulting in confusion when comparing different studies dealing with flexibility

Summary

Introduction

Chemical companies adopt emerging technologies or adapt existing technologies to maintain or improve their competitiveness. They had the flexibility for easy expansion to respond to local steadily increasing market demand and the flexibility for multipurpose applications to accommodate variations in process conditions and change product types They were more economically feasible.[2] During the 1980s and 1990s, researchers investigated the optimal design of flexible chemical processes or plants under uncertainties, focusing on applying mathematical approaches.[3−9] The research was based on the premise that a flexible plant is expected to guarantee a feasible region of process operating parameters that are manageable via manipulating control variables.[6,10] With the advent of the 21st century, the potential for producing multiple products, namely polygeneration, gained attention in the literature. Meerman et al.[12] explored flexible operation of an integrated gasification polygeneration (IG-PG) plant that had both feedstock (i.e., coal and different types of biomass) and output flexibility (electricity at peak hours and biofuels during off-peak hours) as a way to respond to changes in market conditions

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