I-Corps: Energy Efficient Process Design Alternatives

这个i-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力集中在新的设计工艺软件上，以减少化学制造中的能源消耗。大宗商品化学品、塑料、聚合物和其他材料的制造需要大量能源，制造这些产品的公司构成了美国和世界各地工业部门最大的能源消费者群体。在化学、生化和制药行业，特别是在化学分离领域，存在许多降低能源消耗的机会。这项创新有可能为客户提供新的能力，改造现有设施和/或新的基层设计，以减少能源消耗，降低运营成本，提高公司利润，同时减少二氧化碳排放。这个i-Corps项目的核心是基于工程、几何和优化原则的新颖工艺设计技术。该设计软件及其所基于的技术可用于可靠地确定符合特定工艺能源目标的可行、节能的设计组合，并可轻松地与解决热交换和化学反应的其他方法相结合。它允许用户自动和系统地探索广泛的工艺替代方案，包括具有反应、分离和回收的工艺、涉及混合分离的工艺和/或工艺强化。与目前可用于同一任务的其他方法不同，这项新技术确保了所产生的设计是可行的。在开放文献中，核心技术已经在广泛的基准设计示例上进行了广泛的测试。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project centers on new design process software for reducing energy use in chemical manufacturing. Commodity chemicals, plastics, polymers and other materials require large amounts of energy to make and the companies that manufacture these products make up the single largest group of energy consumers in the industrial sector in the U.S. and worldwide. Many opportunities for reducing energy consumption exist within the chemical, biochemical, and pharmaceutical industries, particularly in the area of chemical separations. The innovation has potential to provide customers with new capabilities for retrofitting existing facilities and/or new grass roots designs to reduce energy consumption, reduce operating costs, improve company profits, and simultaneously reduce carbon dioxide emissions.This I-Corps project has at its core novel process design technology that is based on a combination of engineering, geometric, and optimization principles. The design software, and the technology on which it is based, can be used to reliably determine portfolios of feasible, energy efficient designs that meet specific process energy targets and can easily be combined with other methods that address heat exchange and chemical reaction. It allows the user to automatically and systematically explore a wide range of process alternatives, including processes with reaction, separation and recycle, those that involve hybrid separations, and/or process intensification. Unlike other currently available methods for the same task, this new technology guarantees that the resulting designs are feasible. The core technology has been extensively tested on a wide range of benchmark design examples in the open literature.