Читать книгу Profit Maximization Techniques for Operating Chemical Plants - Sandip K. Lahiri - Страница 73

A reactor is the only major equipment that can convert raw materials to a value‐added product. In chemical plants, the real value addition is done only in the reactor. Downstream separation units like distillation towers can be considered as cost centers because they consume energy to separate different products made in the reactor. All the downstream unit operations are for separation of the product and enrichment. Separation units consume energy and cost, whereas the reactor generates money by adding value to raw materials by converting them to a product. Hence, from a profit point of view, reactors are different from a downstream distillation column or other separation units.

In that respect, there is a huge potential impact of reactor optimization on overall plant profitability. The first step of reactor optimization is to know the governing kinetic equations. Industrial reaction kinetics are not known in many cases. A recent AI‐based technique, namely genetic programing, can be used to determine the kinetic equations of unknown industrial reactions. An artificial neural network (ANN) or genetic programing can then be used to model the industrial reactors. Once a reliable model is developed, various stochastic‐based optimization techniques can be used to optimize the reactor parameters to increase selectivity, yield, throughput, etc. In this step a modeling and optimization framework is made to derive more profit from the industrial reactor.