A Dividing Approach for the Synthesis of Water Networks Involving Batch and Continuous Units

This paper presents a mathematical model for the synthesis of water networks, where both batch and continuous units are involved. For cases where the number of batch units is greater than that of continuous units, a dividing approach is proposed. By treating continuous operation as a combination of batch operations, the original design problem is simplified and the resultant problem is to synthesize a batch water network. The model can then be formulated as a mixed-integer nonlinear program based on a superstructure that includes all possible network connections. A modified literature example is solved to illustrate the proposed approach.