This study evaluates the introduction of Carbon Capture and Utilization (CCU) process in two Colombian refineries, focusing on their potential to reduce CO2 emissions and their associated impacts under a scenario aligned with the Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario defined in the 2023 IEA report. The work uses a MILP programming tool (Linny-R) to model the operational processes of refinery sites, incorporating a net total cost calculation to optimize process performance over five-year intervals. This optimization was constrained by the maximum allowable CO2 emissions. The methodology includes the calculation of surplus refinery off-gas availability, the selection of products and CCU technologies, and the systematic collection of data from refinery operations, as well as scientific and industrial publications. The results indicate that integrating surplus refinery fuel gas (originally used for combustion processes) and HTL bio-crude off-gas (as a source of biogenic CO2) can significantl... [more]

This document is supplementary material for the full paper titled "Flow Simulation of Plastic Life Cycle Considering Carbon Renewability and Environmental Impact," submitted for the ESCAPE 35 conference. It includes a detailed explanation of the system boundary construction method used in the flow analysis, as well as the data sources for information such as the GHG emission intensities, which could not be explained in the main text.

This study proposes a model-based approach utilizing a hybrid population balance model (PBM) to optimize temperature profiles for minimizing agglomeration and enhancing crystal growth. The PBM incorporates key mechanisms—nucleation, growth, dissolution, agglomeration, and deagglomeration—and is ap-plied to the crystallization of an industrial active pharmaceutical ingredient (API), Compound K. Parameters were estimated through prior design of experiments (DoE) and refined via additional thermocycle experiments. In-silico DoE simulations demonstrate that the hybrid PBM outperforms traditional methods in assessing process performance under agglomeration-prone conditions. Results confirm that thermocycles effectively reduce agglomeration and promote bulk crystal formation, though their efficiency plateaus be-yond a certain cycle number. This model-based approach provides a more robust strategy for agglomeration control compared to conventional methods, offering valuable insights for indus... [more]

This document contains digital supplementary material (characterization of the case-studies, developed simulation models (and final configurations), optimisation models and post-processing assessments) related to the article entitled “The Paradigm of Water and Energy Integration Systems (WEIS): Methodology and Performance Indicators”, which is part of the peer reviewed conference proceeding of the 35th European Symposium on Computer Aided Process Engineering (ESCAPE 35). The present content has been adapted from the PhD thesis entitled "Simulation and Optimisation of Water and Energy Integration Systems (WEIS): An Innovative Approach for Process Industries".

The document is the digital supplementary material for the article titled "Closed-Loop Data-Driven Model Predictive Control For A Wet Granulation Process Of Continuous Pharmaceutical Tablet Production", submitted to the ESCAPE 35 conference. It contains the state-space equations, mathematical formulation, and additional figures.

The growing size and complexity of energy system optimization models, driven by high-resolution spatial data, pose significant computational challenges. This study introduces methods to reduce model’s size and improve computational efficiency while preserving solution accuracy. First, a composite-curve-based approach is proposed to aggregate granular data into larger resolutions without averaging out specific properties. Second, a general clustering method groups geographically proximate fields, replacing multiple transportation arcs with a single arc to reduce transportation-related variables. Lastly, a two-step algorithm that decomposes the sup-ply chain design problems into two smaller, more manageable subproblems is introduced. These methods are applied to a case study of switchgrass-to-biofuels network design in eight U.S. Midwest states, demonstrating their effectiveness with realistic and detailed spatial data.

This document contains supplementary materials for full-paper submission to ESCAPE 35 - European Symposium on Computer Aided Process Engineering.

Supplementary Material for the contribution "Synthesis of Distillation Flowsheets with Reinforcement Learning using Transformer Blocks" by Niklas Slager and Meik Franke (UTwente) for ESCAPE 35

The complete stochastic-based optimization model for the CSP-TCES-OFC and CSP-TCES-ASU processes are given here.

The transition to renewable energy sources, such as biogas, requires purification processes to separate methane from carbon dioxide, with adsorption-based methods being widely employed. Accurate simulations of these systems, governed by coupled PDEs, ODEs, and algebraic equations, critically depend on precise parameter determination. While traditional approaches often result in significant errors or complex procedures, optimization algorithms provide a more efficient and reliable means of parameter estimation, simplifying the process, improving simulation accuracy, and enhancing the understanding of these systems.
This work introduces an Artificial Intelligence-based methodology for estimating the isotherm parameters of a mathematical phenomenological model for fixed-bed experiments. The separation of CO₂ and CH₄ is used as case study. This work develops an algorithm for parameter estimation for the system's mathematical model. The results show that the validated model has a close fi... [more]

L-lactic acid (L-LA), a key monomer in biodegradable plastics, is a sustainable alternative that can be derived from LCB. The L-LA production process typically involves several various technologies such as fermentation, filtration, and distillation. In the L-LA production process, large amounts of buffers are used to maintain proper pH during fermentation, so conventional buffers (e.g., CaCO3) are often selected because of their low cost. However, these buffers cannot be recycled efficient-ly, and the potential for alternative buffers remains uncertain. In this work, we aim to develop and evaluate novel processes for sustainable L-LA production using the alternative buffer (i.e., KOH). The processes involve a series of different unit operations such as pretreatment, fermentation, ex-traction, and electrolysis. An efficient buffer regeneration process using membrane electrolysis is implemented to recycle the buffer with minimal energy input. Then, we evaluated the viability of the propo... [more]

The document is the digital supplementary material for the article titled "Application of Artificial Intelligence in process simulation tool", submitted to the ESCAPE 35 conference. It contains additional information and figures.

This document contains supplementary material related to the article "Valorization of refinery fuel gas and biogenic gases from thermochemical conversion into low-carbon methanol", submitted to the 35th European Symposium on Computer Aided Process Engineering (ESCAPE 35).

The reduction and recovery of organic fraction of municipal solid waste is a major challenge for contemporary society. It requires the establishment of regional strategies with minimized environ-mental impact. This study employs life cycle assessment to evaluate the respective environmental performances of the current French system based on incineration, and those of alternative systems including (i) anaerobic digestion with composting and (ii) composting for biowaste treatment under different energy scenarios. The environmental impacts of Parisian waste are calculated by consid-ering the French energy mix in 2022, the average European energy mix in 2022 and the projected French energy mix for 2030. The results show that the proportion of fossil-based sources in the energy mixes significantly influences the environmental performance of waste management sys-tems. Systems with high fossil-based sources dependency tend to favour incineration-based pro-cessing systems. This is driven by th... [more]

This document contains digital supplementary material (detailed model description, parameters for different case studies and figure of exemplary waste heat supply and heat demand) related to the article "A Data-Driven Conceptual Approach to Heat Pump Sizing in Chemical Processes with Fluctuating Heat Supply and Demand" which is submitted to the peer reviewed conference proceeding of the 35th European Symposium on Computer Aided Process Engineering (ESCAPE 35).

The document is the digital supplementary material for the article titled "Synthesis of Liquid Mixture Separation Networks Using Multi-Material Membranes", submitted to the ESCAPE 35 conference. It contains the mathematical formulation, data tables, and additional figures.

This document contains digital supplementary material (model validation, flowsheets and detailed simulation/optimisation results) related to the article entitled “Modelling of a Heat Recovery System (HRS) Integrated with Steam Turbine Combined Heat and Power (CHP) Unit in a Petrochemical Plant”, which is part of the peer reviewed conference proceeding of the 35th European Symposium on Computer Aided Process Engineering (ESCAPE 35).

To match the growing demand for biomethane production, anaerobic digestors need an optimal and time-varying adaptation of the input diet. Dynamic co-digestion constitutes a hard challenge for the limited instrumentation and control equipment typically installed aboard full-scale plants. The development of prediction models is foreseen to support process (optimal) design and control. In this work, a rigorous framework is applied to take full-scale applicability into account while dealing with the design and training of both high-fidelity and control-oriented first-principle/grey-box models, intended to be exploited for real-time optimization and actual process control respectively.

Contains 134 original peer-reviewed research articles and 10 extended abstracts submitted to FOCAPD 2024. Subject categories include Invited Plenary and Keynote Submissions, Advances in PSE Design, Design and Emerging Fields, Design and Energy Transitions, Design and Sustainability, and Design Education and Future of Design. The scope is process design as it applies to process systems engineering in chemical engineering, energy systems engineering, and related fields.

This paper proposes an AI-assisted approach aimed at accelerating chemical process design through causal incremental reinforcement learning (CIRL) where an intelligent agent is interacting iteratively with a process simulation environment (e.g., Aspen HYSYS, DWSIM, etc.). The proposed approach is based on an incremental learnable optimizer capable of guiding multi-objective optimization towards optimal design variable configurations, depending on several factors including the problem complexity, selected RL algorithm and hyperparameters tuning. One advantage of this approach is that the agent-simulator interaction significantly reduces the vast search space of design variables, leading to an accelerated and optimized design process. This is a generic causal approach that enables the exploration of new process configurations and provides actionable insights to designers to improve not only the process design but also the design process across various applications. The approach was valid... [more]

This is the supplementary material for the Foundations of Computer Aided Process Design (FOCAPD 2024) Conference Proceedings: Novel Cost-Efficient Tributyl Citrate Production Process presented in the Systems and Control Transactions series

Selected Extended Abstracts from the Systems & Control Division Sessions of the 72nd Canadian Chemical Engineering Conference, October 23-26, 2022, Vancouver, BC

This is supplemental data for a paper submitted to the PSE 2021+ conference. It includes values used to calculate emissions reductions and financial value of biomass pyrolysis by-product utilization.

Selected Extended Abstracts from the
 Systems & Control Division Sessions of the 
71st Canadian Chemical Engineering Conference
, October 24-27, 2021, Montréal, Québec

This presentation discusses the development and use of graphical user interfaces (GUIs) as cyber-assisted educational tools for instructing and engaging undergraduate chemical engineering students, training graduate students for computational research in science and engineering, and introducing lay audiences to chemical engineering concepts in informal learning environments outside of the classroom. A GUI encapsulates computational software within a visual environment where users can provide interactive input through brief text or point-and-click controls and display query or simulation results through an automated process without needing to learn a programming language or specific commands. MATLAB and Python are two popular software environments for science and engineering used in many university chemical engineering programs worldwide. Both provide excellent user support for rapid development of professional-quality GUIs by engineering educators, academic researchers, and science and... [more]