Developing targets for the performance index of a chemical reactor network

The target approach to reactor synthesis tries to determine an upper bound for the performance of a chemical reactor network as measured by its objective function (such as yield or reactor volume). This leads to an optimal control formulation in which the residence time distribution and the micromixing function are the control variables. The optimal control problem is solved using a gradient based algorithm that employs successive quadratic programing and adjoint variables. Examples are given to illustrate the approach taken.