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A hierarchical method to integrated solvent and process design of physical CO 2 absorption using the SAFT ‐γ M ie approach
Author(s) -
Burger Jakob,
Papaioannou Vasileios,
Gopinath Smitha,
Jackson George,
Galindo Amparo,
Adjiman Claire S.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
aiche journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.958
H-Index - 167
eISSN - 1547-5905
pISSN - 0001-1541
DOI - 10.1002/aic.14838
Subject(s) - process (computing) , process design , process engineering , solvent , absorption (acoustics) , mathematical optimization , computer science , set (abstract data type) , chemistry , engineering , materials science , process integration , mathematics , organic chemistry , composite material , programming language , operating system
Molecular‐level decisions are increasingly recognized as an integral part of process design. Finding the optimal process performance requires the integrated optimization of process and solvent chemical structure, leading to a challenging mixed‐integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) problem. The formulation of such problems when using a group contribution version of the statistical associating fluid theory, SAFT‐γ Mie, to predict the physical properties of the relevant mixtures reliably over process conditions is presented. To solve the challenging MINLP, a novel hierarchical methodology for integrated process and solvent design (hierarchical optimization) is presented. Reduced models of the process units are developed and used to generate a set of initial guesses for the MINLP solution. The methodology is applied to the design of a physical absorption process to separate carbon dioxide from methane, using a broad selection of ethers as the molecular design space. The solvents with best process performance are found to be poly(oxymethylene)dimethylethers. © 2015 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J , 61: 3249–3269, 2015