Dynamic Operability Analysis for Process Design and Control of Modular Natural Gas Utilization Systems

Abstract

Process modularization is an alternative process design and construction framework, in which modular units are independent and replaceable blocks of a process system. While modular plants have higher efficiency and are safer to construct than conventional stick-built plants (Roy, S. Chem. Eng. Prog. 2017, 113, 28–31), they are significantly more challenging to operate because of the loss in the control degrees of freedom that comes with process integration and intensification (Bishop, B. A.; Lima, F. V. Processes 2021, 9, 2165). To address this challenge, in this work, operability analyses are performed to consider the design and operation of modular units. Initially, a steady-state operability analysis is employed to find a set of feasible modular designs that are able to operate considering different modular plant conditions. A dynamic operability analysis is then applied to the feasible designs to identify the operable designs that are capable of rejecting the operational disturbances. Lastly, a closed-loop control measure is introduced to compare the performances of the different operable designs. The proposed approach is implemented in a modular membrane reactor to find a set of operable designs considering different natural gas wells, and the respective closed-loop nonlinear model predictive control performance of these units is evaluated.

Plant‐wide control for processes with recycle and narrow feasible sets

“…Processes are designed to operate around a specific nominal state [12] without foreseeing that disturbances could cause their drifting to other operating points or out of the feasible region. [13][14][15] Therefore, it is essential to consider the dynamic behaviour of individual process stages to ensure the overall plant's feasibility.…”

Editorial for the Festschrift Honoring the Legacy of Babatunde A. Ogunnaike (1956–2022)

“…In the process systems realm, we note the contribution of Dinh et al, who focus on the dynamic operability of modular processes for utilizing natural gas. 3 Luo et al cover the design of multifeedstock/multiproduct processes using neural network surrogate flexibility constraints. 4 Wu et al present novel process developments for hybrid reactive-extractive distillation.…”