Distributed optimization of large-scale chemical / petrochemical plant operations.

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The chemical / petrochemical industries operate processing plants that are very large-scale, highly integrated and complex systems. The performance objectives for such plants are to maximize operating efficiency, while ensuring a minimal environmental impact. Current process control and optimization approaches cannot meet the demands for increasingly efficient operations. We are nearing a technological breakpoint, where the current process automation paradigm will not be able to meet the performance demands imposed by society. Thus a key frontier in process systems engineering is the creation of techniques and tools that will provide the basis for the creation of the next generation of process automation systems. More precisely, new approaches are required for process control and optimization for the very large-scale systems that are encountered in the chemical / petrochemical industries (e.g., time-varying, tightly integrated, nonlinear and so forth).