ISBN 9783843939263

978-3-8439-3926-3, Reihe Verfahrenstechnik

Hanns Kuhlmann
A Phenomena-Based Approach to Process Synthesis Incorporating Process Intensification

217 Seiten, Dissertation Technische Universität Dortmund (2018), Softcover, A5

Zusammenfassung / Abstract

Process intensification is a well-known concept for achieving substantial economic and ecological improvements of (bio-)chemical processes by applying novel and innovative equipment and process structures, such as hybrid or reactive separations. It is mostly applied for de-bottlenecking existing processes, where the general process structure is already fixed and the potential for improvements is therefore limited. Consequently, the largest lever for

Improvements can be expected when process intensification is already considered during process synthesis. The purpose of process synthesis is the generation of flowsheet variants that fulfill a defined task as efficient as possible, concerning economic and ecological aspects. This thesis presents a novel process synthesis method, which generates flowsheet variants on an abstract level, considering generalised mass and energy exchange between different phases. Consequently, it is not limited to a given set of pre-defined unit operations and known flowsheet structures are not postulated. Thereby, the full potential of process intensification in unleashed. The application to three industrially relevant case studies demonstrates the capability of the developed method to automatically generate flowsheet variants that allow significant cost reductions compared to existing reference processes. The obtained results show that it encourages to think "out of the box" and that innovative solutions are achieved.