Title: Process Optimization in Chemical Engineering

Author: Christian Jair Sánchez Reynel

Introduction
Many companies in the chemical engineering space struggle with their objective to
increase efficiency and lower costs in their processes. The best way to do so is to
design and implement innovative processes steps while maintaining or improving
the quality of their products. Equally important is increasing safe operations and
decreasing downtime of the installations. Implementing new processes is
challenging, through, as inefficiencies in the process become apparent only after
the units have been running for a certain amount of time. Also, new investments
will only be considered once the existing units have been depreciated or have
become obsolete.

Development
Safe plant operations and quality products are critical to the subsistence of the
business. Simply optimizing a process for better yield is not enough; the end
products also need to meet high-quality standards. For example, using a hydraulic
wash column for melt crystallization should not only utilize less energy, it should
also lead to high quality separation results in order to be deemed as a truly
optimized process.
Automation of key chemical engineering processes is making plants more efficient
and effective. Your company can benefit from using distributed control systems
that automate key processes through integrating machines, monitoring
performance and using sensors to communicate key information.
A good route to constant quality and lower costs in chemical engineering is making
the switch from batch to continuous processes. Batch processes tend to be
inefficient and more difficult to control. With continuous processes, companies can
increase consistency in product quality and often reduce operational costs through
reduced waste and more efficient use of utilities.
An often-overlooked aspect of process optimization in chemical engineering is the
proper maintenance of equipment within the plant. Inefficient machines can lead to
high operational costs. Therefore, the performance of machines and other
equipment needs to be closely monitored on a regular basis. The use of industrial
internet of things (IIoT) technologies can closely monitor equipment for
performance issues.
Chemical processes often begin with a high yield, after which the products taper off
and there is no significant change in yield during subsequent stages of the
chemical reaction. Plants should identify the point at which production costs
supersede the yield and limit the progress of the reaction until this point. Another
strategy is to reuse reaction inputs with other subsequent substrates in order to
reduce production costs.

Conclusion
The precise description of real-world appliances requires complex, often highly
parameterized models. The solution of optimization problems based on these
models generally requires a great amount of function evaluations which in many
cases are obtained from expensive simulations. This leads to a significant
numerical complexity, especially when an overview over the entire decision space
is desired.
Within process engineering, a number of different objectives and restrictions has to
be taken into account. For example, operating and fix costs are to be minimized,
while simultaneously the quality of the final products should be maximized.
Additionally, health and environmental issues play an important role.
To find a good compromise between these different requirements, the process
engineer not only has to compare the various tunings of a given layout, but also a
number of several devices, this is a challenging task.

References
Perry, Robert H., and Don W. Green. Perry's Chemical Engineers' Handbook . 7th
ed. New York: McGraw-Hill Inc., 1997: 7-15 - 7-17. Print.
Dr. Joachim Veits and Dr. Kai Pflug (May 6, 2017) “Not Quite World Class Yet:
Process Optimization Potential at Chinese Chemical Producers”, Special Report,
in: China Chemical Reporter (www.ccr.com.cn/new/).