Abstract
As interest in the modularization and intensification of chemical processes continues to grow, more research must be directed towards the modeling and analysis of these units. Intensified process units such as polymer membrane reactors pose unique challenges pertaining to design and operation that have not been fully addressed. In this work, a novel approach for modeling membrane reactors is developed in AVEVA’s Simcentral Simulation Platform. The produced model allows for the simulation of polymer membrane reactors under nonisothermal and countercurrent operation for the first time. This model is then applied to generate an operability mapping to study how operating points translate to overall unit performance. This work demonstrates how operability analyses can be used to identify areas of improvement in membrane reactor design, other than just using operability mapping studies to identify optimal input conditions. The performed analysis enables the quantification of the Pareto frontier that ultimately leads to design improvements that both increase overall performance and decreases the cost of the unit.
Highlights
Modular equipment is an emerging technology that offers many potential benefits in terms of increased safety, flexibility, and ease of modification [1]
This paper introduced a new modeling and operability analysis method for polymer membrane reactor studies
The following features were included in the membrane model for the study where normally some combination of them would be excluded: (i) nonisothermal operation—heat transfer across the tube wall, Joule-Thomson cooling and heating, heat of reaction, and thermal inertia for dynamic calculations; (ii) countercurrent operation; (iii) simultaneous, bidirectional permeation of multiple components
Summary
Modular equipment is an emerging technology that offers many potential benefits in terms of increased safety, flexibility, and ease of modification [1]. Processes 2020, 8, 78 operation to avoid boundary value problems, and utilization of membrane materials such as palladium where only one component is capable of permeating into or out of the process These simplifications greatly reduce the time required to run online optimization or modeling studies, but at the cost of a loss in accuracy. The operability concept is used to study the relationship between unit performance and operational decisions This analysis helps with improving the understanding of the benefits and drawbacks of polymer membranes and provides a direction for future work in the design of membrane materials. Operability is used to identify the Pareto frontier for optimization in order to drive design decisions for overall performance improvement These three contributions form the necessary foundation for future work in developing an effective mixed-integer algorithm for determining an optimum modular design that improves unit operability. The paper is closed with conclusions and some directions for future work
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