EFFICIENT OPTIMIZATION OF BATCH DISTILLATION WITH CHEMICAL-REACTION USING POLYNOMIAL CURVE-FITTING TECHNIQUES

A computationally efficient framework is presented for dynamic optimiz ation of batch distillation where chemical reaction and separation tak e place simultaneously. An objective to maximize the conversion of the limiting reactant dynamic optimization problem (maximum conversion pr oblem) is formulated for a representative system, and parametric solut ions of the problem are obtained. Polynomial curve fitting techniques are then applied to the results of the dynamic optimization problem. T hese polynomials are used to formulate a nonlinear algebraic maximum p rofit problem which can be solved extremely efficiently using a nonlin ear optimization solver. This provides an efficient framework which ca n be used for on-line optimization of batch distillation within schedu ling programs for batch processes. The method can also be easily exten ded to nonreactive batch distillation and to nonconventional batch dis tillation columns.