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

Using an ionic liquid (IL) route for HMF production has been evaluated with the
dehydration reaction in [BMIm]Cl with different options starting from fructose and glucose
with different initial concentrations. The HMF production cost is highly affected by the
recycle of IL and catalyst. Processes with a high feed concentration show better economic
potential than processes with a low feed concentration. IL processes starting from fructose
are more costly than IL processes starting from glucose. A high concentration feed of
glucose showed the best economic potential.
To sum up, the dehydration reaction yield is found to be the key important factor to achieve
a feasible production cost of HMF. The use of the organic solvent can not be avoided and
plays a very important role in determining the process economics. Recycling (unconverted
sugar, reaction medium and solvent) become essential issues for HMF processes to reach a
feasible production cost. Future directions and suggestions for the synthesis of HMF from
sugar in a large-scale have been proposed. The developed methodology is helpful in
evaluation and giving research directions. The methodology can be applied to other
chemical process design and evaluation problems and in particular those for the next
generation of production processes.
5.1.6: Philip Lutze, 2012, “An Innovative Synthesis Methodology for Process
Intensification”, Ph.D. thesis (PEC12-22) PROCESS-CAPEC
Process intensification (PI) has the potential to improve existing processes or create new
process options, which are needed in order to produce products using more sustainable
methods. A variety of intensified equipment has been developed which potentially creates a
large number of options to improve a process. However, to date only a limited number have
achieved implementation in industry, such as reactive distillation, dividing wall columns
and reverse flow reactors. A reason for this is that the identification of the best PI option is
neither simple nor systematic. That is to decide where and how the process should be
intensified for the biggest improvement. Until now, most PI has been selected based on
case-based trial-and-error procedures, not comparing different PI options on a quantitative
basis.
Therefore, the objective of this PhD project is to develop a systematic synthesis/design
methodology to achieve PI. It allows the quick identification of the best PI option on a
quantitative basis and will push the implementation and acceptance of PI in industry. Such
a methodology should be able to handle a large number of options. The method of solution
should be efficient, robust and reliable using a welldefined screening procedure. It should
be able to use already existing PI equipment as well as to generate novel PI equipment.
This PhD-project succeeded in developing such a synthesis/design methodology. In order to
manage the complexities involved, the methodology employs a decomposition-based
solution approach. Starting from an analysis of existing processes, the methodology
generates a set of PI process options. Subsequently, the initial search space is reduced
through an ordered sequence of steps. As the search space decreases, more process details
are added, increasing the complexity of the mathematical problem but decreasing its size.
The best PI options are ordered in terms of a performance index and a related set are
verified through detailed process simulation. Two building blocks can be used for the
synthesis/design which is PI unit-operations as well as phenomena. The use of PI unitoperations
as building block aims to allow a quicker implementation/retrofit of processes
while phenomena as building blocks enable the ability to develop novel process solutions
beyond those currently in existence. Implementation of this methodology requires the use
of a number of methods/algorithms, models, databases, etc., in the different steps which
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