DEVELOPMENT OF NOVEL MULTIPHASE REACTORS USING A SYSTEMATIC DESIGN FRAMEWORK

The synthesis of novel reactor designs is still left to experimentatio n and coincidence rather than systematic design procedures. industrial practice often applies textbook knowledge originally developed for si mple and trivial systems, to complex reaction processes involving mult iple phases and complicated kinetics and economic tradeoffs. This work outlines important developments for the design and optimization of mu ltiphase reaction systems under isothermal conditions with strong and consistent evidence of novelty in the design structures. The reactor d esigns are screened with a systematic methodology based on a novel rep resentation and a reliable optimization approach. The work significant ly extends previous efforts in homogeneous systems and the optimizatio n is able to handle all typical complexities. The method is laking up applications in industry and is illustrated here for a gas-liquid chlo rination example.