CAPE for Multi-Objective Optimisation Problems: Economics, Environmental, Heat integration and Controllability

摘要

In these days of increasing concern towards energy conservation and environmental protection, process systems engineers are required to integrate their processes to achieve economic, environmental and social objectives, while at the same time keeping their plants readily operable. This process integration presents a dilemma between control and operation on one hand and process design on the other. Thus, it forces the process engineers to consider the plant-wide controllability and operability issues in the early design stages. An integrated multi-objective optimisation framework is proposed to identify the trade-offs between various goals in process synthesis, design and operation. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is used to quantify and qualify the environmental consequences of any selected flowsheet in the proposed framework. Heat integration and Heat Exchanger Network (HEN) designs are integrated within the framework as process improvement options. Process controllability and operability assessments are carried out to explore the integrated flowsheets. A case study of vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) plant, with varying degrees of heat integration, is used to show the usefulness of the proposed framework.