PEC12-25 CAPEC-PROCESS Industrial Consortium ... - DTU Orbit

pellets. Empirical kinetic models, in good agreement with the experimental data obtained
for the Cu/SiO2 catalyst, are developed in order to support the establishment of an
improved economic evaluation of the investigated process. Extrapolation of the derived
model to the industrial pressure regime indicates a satisfactory activity. The Cu/SiO2
catalyst is further able to withstand partly oxidative dehydrogenation conditions, allowing
for immense process improvements. Finally, the ethanol to acetic acid process is put into a
broader context, by reviewing the methods used in this work, the market influence on its
fate, the conclusions and improvements listed. Eventually, with an outlook on some
alternative process possibilities, my recommendations given under the consideration of the
initial project objective.
The results of the thesis, taking one example of biomass conversion, show that the
utilisation of biomass in the production of chemicals by heterogeneous catalysis is
promising from a technical point of view. But risks of market price excursions dominated
by fossil based chemicals further set a criterion of a solid economic margin. Therefore,
under market considerations other alternatives are to be investigated.
In addition to the technical conclusions it appears that a multi-disciplinary approach to
process innovation is advantageous.
5.1.2 Carlos Axel Díaz-Tovar, 2011, “Computer-Aided Modeling of Lipid Processing
Technology”, Ph.D. thesis (PEC11-23)- CAPEC
Vegetable oils and fats have an important role in human nutrition andin the chemical
industry since they are a source of energy, fat-soluble viatimins, and now also in the
production of renewable sources energy. Nowadays as the consumer preferences for natural
products and healthier foods increase along with gorowing interest in biofuels, the
oleochemical industry faces in the upcoming years major challenges in terms of design and
development of better products and more sustaibale processes to make them.
Computer-aided methods and tools for process synthesis, modeling and simulation are
widely used for design, analysis, and optimization of processes in the chemical and
petrochemical industries. These computer-aided tools have helped the chemical industry to
evolve beyond commodities towards specialty chemicals and “comsumer oriented
chemicals based products”. Unfortunately this is not the case for the edible oil and
biodiesel industries. The oleochemical industry lags behind the chemical industry in terms
of Thermophysical property modeling and development of computational tools suitable for
the design/analysis, and optimization of lipid-related processes.
The aim of this work has been to develop systematic computer-aided methods (property
models) and tools (database) related to the prediction of the necessary physical properties
suitable for design and analysis of processes emploiying lipid technologies. The methods
and tools include: the development of a lipid-database (CAPEC_Lipids_Database) of
collected experimental data from the open literature, data from industry, and, generated data
from validated predictive property models; as well as the development of a databse userinterface
and an external version of this database, for use in commercial process simulators,
for fast adoption-analysis of property prediction models and for fast development of
process models not available in process simulators.
This was achieved by first identifying and classifying the lipd compounds found in the
edible oil and biodiesel industries. Then creating a list of the thermophysical properties
needed for model-based design and analysis of edible oil and biodiesel processes. Next,
collection of the available experimental data from different sources for the indentified
compounds. Finally, selecting and adopting the appropriate models to predict the necessary
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