Modification of the Conventional Attainable Region and the Formation of a Novel Concept for an Economic Attainable Region

The design and optimization of reactor networks using the conventional concept of attainable region is based on technological, rather than, economical criteria. The solution from the economical point of view when the operating and investment costs cannot be neglected may not be optimal, not even in regard to the structure. In order to circumvent this deficiency, the conventional Concentration Attainable Region (CAR) is transformed into an Economic Attainable Region (EAR). A novel concept for EAR construction is proposed first for 2-D, and then for multi-D problems. One-parametric NLP or MINLP optimizations with residence time as a variating parameter are performed to construct trajectories in the EAR. In this way the EAR is aided by mathematical programming for 3-D or more-D problems in order to handle dimensions higher than 2 as degrees of freedom for the economic objective function.