1.

4 Applications in chemical engineering

Optimization of an Industrial Nylon 6 Semibatch Reactor
Optimize the operation of an industrial nylon 6 semibatch reactor. The two objectives considered
in this study were the minimization of the total reaction time and the concentration of the
undesirable cyclic dimer in the polymer produced. The problem involves two equality
constraints: one to ensure a desired degree of polymerization in the product and the other, to
ensure a desired value of the monomer conversion. The former was handled using a penalty
function approach whereas the latter was used as a stopping criterion for the integration of the
model equations. The decision variables were the vapor release rate history from the semibatch
reactor and the jacket fluid temperature. It is important to note that the former variable is a
function of time. Therefore, to encode it properly as a sequence of variables, the continuous rate
history was discretized into several equally-spaced time points, with the first of these selected
randomly between the two (original) bounds, and the rest selected randomly over smaller bounds
around the previous generated value (so as to ensure feasibility and continuity of the decision
variable).

Optimization of an Industrial Ethylene Reactor

Tarafder et al. (2005a) applied NSGA-II to study an industrial ethylene reactor following an
MOO approach. The authors selected a free-radical mechanism to model the reactor. Three
objectives were considered in this study, namely ethane conversion, ethylene selectivity and the
flow rate of ethylene. Four MOO problems were formulated using these objectives. The first bi-
objective optimization problem included ethane conversion and ethylene selectivity. These
objectives had a conflicting behavior. The flow rate, which is related to the conversion and the
selectivity, was included in two additional biobjective problems: flow rate-conversion and flow
rate-selectivity. Finally, a three-objective problem was formulated including all three objectives.
The problem involved nine decision variables (seven continuous and two discrete). In order to
verify the quality of the Pareto front obtained, a e -constraint method was applied to generate
some solutions at the center and at the extremes of the Pareto front. The results showed that these
solutions lie on the Pareto front obtained by NSGA-II. It was observed that the Pareto optimal
solutions were better than the industrial operating point in several cases.
Table 1 Applications of process optimization in chemical engineering.
Application Objective Selected/Independent decision Remarks
variables
Lactic acid recovery by Minimize total CSTR temperature, number of The problem involves many
(1)
esterification in a CSTR annual cost stages, reflux ratio, feed location, nonlinear, equality constraints
and hydrolysis in a number and position of reactive solved by Newton-Raphson
reactive distillation stages, catalyst mass method
Fed-batch fermentation Maximize ethanol Glucose feed concentration and Using hybrid DE (with
(2)
process production flow rate, initial glucose migration and acceleration
concentration, initial volume and operations) and multiplier
fermentation time updating method for
constraints
Plug flow reactor catalyst Maximize yield Composition of catalyst, mole Used trigonometric mutation in
(3)
blend fraction of components DE
Heat exchanger network Minimize the total Area of each of the 3 heat Solved by the modified DE
(4)
design heat exchange area exchangers, and 2 exit
temperatures
Beer fermentation Maximize ethanol Trajectory of cooling rate, The MOO problem was
(5)
process production and concentrations of three sugars converted into a fuzzy goal
minimize (glucose, maltose and maltotriose) optimization problem, which
fermentation and fermentation was solved using hybrid DE
time simultaneously time