Simultaneous optimization and heat integration of chemical processes

TLDR

The study proposes a unified procedure that simultaneously optimizes process flow sheets and heat integration to achieve minimal utility consumption. This is achieved by embedding heat‑integration constraints—based on a pinch‑point representation that adapts to varying stream conditions—into a nonlinear optimization problem and solving the resulting nondifferentiable formulations with a smooth approximation technique. Application to a chemical process example demonstrates significant economic savings, and the approach simplifies to tractable models when flow rates and temperatures are fixed.

Abstract

Abstract A procedure is proposed for simultaneously handling the problem of optimal heat integration while performing the optimization of process flow sheets. The method is based on including a set of constraints into the nonlinear process optimization problem so as to insure that the minimum utility target for heat recovery networks is featured. These heat integration constraints, which do not require temperature intervals for their definition, are based on a proposed representation for locating pinch points that can vary according to every set of process stream conditions (flow rates and temperatures) selected in the optimization path. The underlying mathematical formulations correspond to nondifferentiable optimization problems, and an efficient smooth approximation method is proposed for their solution. An example problem on a chemical process is presented to illustrate the economic savings that can be obtained with the proposed simultaneous approach. The method reduces to simple models for the case of fixed flow rates and temperatures.