Schemes of dynamic optimization and on-line quality control for batch reactor have been developed and applied to a semi-batch esterification reactor.
To obtain optimal operating conditions for the given semi-batch reactor system with complex reaction kinetic and process constraints, a general nonlinear programming solver and finite element techniques have been introduced. The optimization results for the complex reactor system have been compared with those of Kumar et al. [1984] to show better optimization performance. The proposed optimizing scheme has been applied to the free end time problem to obtain the realistic operating condition. The results can supply valuable information for economic operation of the given batch esterification reactor. In addition, an incremental approach to the implementation of the optimization scheme on industrial batch reactors has been proposed.
In batch reactor operation, a reliable method to know the reaction state on-line is one of the important requirements for the quality regulation between batches and the minimization of the batch cycle time. An online quality control scheme using the conductance measurement of the reaction mixture is presented for a predefined optimized operation of a batch esterification reactor. Through a series of experimental studies, a semi-empirical equation of the conductance-conversion correlation has been derived. Using this conductance measurement together with reaction model, a cascade nonlinear control scheme for the batch esterification reactor has been designed. Additionally, to solve the problem of model inaccuracies and uncertainties, the extended Kalman filter has been applied for the reaction state estimation. Simulation and experimental studies have been conducted to illustrate the performance of the control scheme. The proposed approach shows better control performance than the commonly used temperature control approach in controlling the batch esterification reactor.
