Synthesis in Conceptual Process Engineering

The goal of conceptual process engineering is to develop a skeletal scheme for a material-making facility, as may be represented by a flowsheet, to implement the chemical conversion of available raw materials into desired product materials, fit for use, at the desired scale, safely, responsibly, economically, and on time. This flowsheet will be refined and optimized in subsequent basic and detailed engineering stages of the innovation process on the basis of additional experimental information, detailed calculations, standards, expert opinion, available equipment and construction capabilities, and other input. It is most desirable that this initial conceptual process scheme prove to be a better starting point for the remainder of the innovation process than other possible flowsheets. A flowsheet does not exist until it has been first synthesized. 

Conceptual process engineering does not involve the invention of chemistry. However, it may very well help to select from among alternative candidate chemistries on the basis of what appears to be required to implement each chemical alternative in an industrial environment. 

There appears to be three fundamental approaches to the synthesis of chemical process flowsheets. The first, systematic generation, builds the flowsheet from smaller, more basic components strung together in such a way that raw materials eventually become transformed into the desired product. The second, evolutionary modification, starts with an existing flowsheet for the same or a similar product and then makes modifications as necessary to adopt the design to meet the objectives of the specific case at hand. The third, superstructure optimization, views synthesis as a mathematical optimization over structure this approach starts with a larger superflowsheet that contains embedded within it many redundant alternatives and interconnections and then systematically strips the less desirable parts of the superstructure away. 

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