Synthesis of isothermal reactor—separator—recycle systems

Abstract

A systematic synthesis approach is presented for isothermal reactor—separator—recycle systems. The approach proposes a general superstructure of different reactors and separation tasks and features all the potential interconnections among the proposed units. The synthesis problem based upon the proposed superstructure results in a mixed integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) formulation in which the objective function involves both integer and continuous variables and is subject to a nonlinear set of constraints. A variety of objectives was selected for the synthesis problem such as the minimization of the total annual cost of the plant and the maximization of its profit, as well as objectives traditionally used for optimizing the performance of a reactor network such as the product yield and selectivity. Discussion of the results and comparison among the different solutions obtained provided the ground for conclusions related to the potential trade-offs and the performance of the isothermal chemical systems under consideration.