A Design Approach Based on Irreversibility

In the wider context of conceptual process design, sustainability issues like feedstock selection, (re-)use of catalyst and (re-)use of solvents are of key importance. In our perspective of life span (c/. explanatory caveat in section 1.4), we do not cover those aspects as we focus exclusively on the minimization of loss of resources in the operational phase. 

Design specifications Design/operational variables Domain knowledge 

Process - spatial configuration - control structure and settings - operational parameters - disturbance scenario Continuous - optimal design variables - performance criteria - non-equilibrium thermodynamics - steady-state simulation - dynamic simulation - multiobjective optimization 

The input-output flow of information is given in table 8.1. It is worth mentioning that the thrust of this chapter is the optimization-based design approach. Multiple objective functions are considered and embedded in a large scale optimization problem. 

Recalling the engineering and scientific design questions given in chapter 1, in this chapter we address question 7, namely, 

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Some options for achieving a thermodynamic optimum are to improve an existing design so the operation will be less irreversible and to distribute the irreversibilities uniformly over space and time. This approach relates the distribution of irreversibilities to the minimization of entropy production based on linear nonequilibrium thermodynamics. For a transport of single substance, the local rate of entropy production is... 

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