Mathematical programming tools for chemical engineering process design synthesis

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to review different optimization techniques used in chemical process synthesis. The paper first defines the process synthesis problem as a mixed-integer programming problem and then discusses the three approaches which have been used to solve it. In the discrete approach, where the operating conditions of unit operations are fixed, combined heuristic and algorithmic procedures are promising tools. In the continuous approach, the synthesis problem is a nonlinear programming problem, where the design and structural variables are optimized simultaneously. Since efficient large-scale nonlinear programming codes are now available, this approach will be a great success. A recent alternative consists in merging the two previous approaches to implement large-scale mixed-integer nonlinear programming codes. This method will have wide applications in complex chemical process synthesis.