U.S.-South Africa Cooperative Research: Attainable Regions and Mathematical Programming for Waste Minimization in Chemical Processes

该奖项支持卡内基梅隆大学化学工程系的Lorenz Biegler和南非约翰内斯堡威特沃特斯兰德大学工艺与材料工程学院的David Glasser之间的合作研究项目。该项目的标题是“化工过程中废物最小化的可实现区域和数学规划”。在过去十年中，为尽量减少危险和有毒副产品的生产而进行的工艺改进引起了工业界的极大关注。在化学过程中最大限度地减少浪费的一个有希望的战略是开发改进的反应堆设计和反应堆网络，以避免从一开始就产生这些副产品。这样，下游的分离和净化成本就降低了，甚至消除了。为了解决这一重要问题，卡内基梅隆大学(CMU)和威特沃特斯兰德大学(WITS)之间的合作研究工作将开发以反应堆网络本身为中心的过程合成策略。在过去10年里，南非的这个研究小组致力于解决这个问题的几何方法，而美国的研究小组则开发了基于流程优化的计算算法。这家合资企业结合了这两种方法的最好之处，并计划为最大限度地减少化工过程中的废物开发反应堆网络设计的卓越战略。

This award supports a cooperative research project between Lorenz Biegler, Department of Chemical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, and David Glasser, School of Process and Materials Engineering, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. The project is entitled "Attainable Regions and Mathematical programming for Waste Minimization in Chemical Processes." Process modification to minimize the production of hazardaous and toxic byproducts has captured considerable industrial attention over the past decade. A promising strategy to waste minimization in chemical processes is to develop improved reactor designs and reactor networks that avoid the production of these byproducts in the first place. In this way, the downstream separation and cleanup costs are reduced or even eliminated. To deal with this important problem, the collaborative research effort between Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and the University of Witwatersrand (WITS) will develop process synthesis strategies that are centered on the reactor network itself. During the past decade, the research group in South Africa has worked on geometric approaches to solving this problem while the US group has developed computational algorithms based on process optimization. This joint venture combines the best of both approaches and plans to develop superior strategies for reactor network design for waste minimizing chemical processes.