Experimental Simulation of a Two-Dimensional Attainable Region and Its Application in the Optimization of Production Rate and Process Time of an Adiabatic Batch Reactor

Abstract

Attainable region analysis is a graphical optimization technique which enables design engineers to synthesize optimal reactor networks to achieve a given objective. This is accomplished if a given system of reactions with known reaction kinetic models and feedstock is available. This paper shows experimentally how the geometry of a two-dimensional attainable region can be generated by reaction and mixing as the only fundamental processes occurring in the reactor of a hydrolysis process without taking the reaction kinetic model of the process into consideration. The experiment was conducted using an adiabatic batch reactor fitted with a thermistor for temperature measurement. The results were used to develop a novel technique to run the adiabatic batch reactor by applying the attainable region analysis. From the analysis the production rate of the product and the process time of the adiabatic batch reactor were optimized by graphical techniques, and it is shown that the maximum production rate increased by 72% as compared with the standard method of operating the batch reactor and the corresponding minimized process time was reduced to 0.36 h compared with 1.26 h of the standard batch operation. It is also shown that the limit of the optimization process generated the optimal process configuration required for a continuous operation to achieve the highest production rate in a minimum time possible.