Process flowsheet optimization : recent results and future directions

Abstract: "Optimization strategies based on detailed and rigorous models of process flowsheets have been of interest to process engineers for the past 25 years. Here we review earlier optimization strategies and emphasize more recent strategies based on Successive Quadratic Programming (SQP). These strategies allow the simultaneous solution and optimization of the process model and thus lead to significant reductions in the computational effort for an optimization study. Several examples are presented to define the optimization problem and demonstrate the performance of the simultaneous strategies. Finally, some open research questions are described and future directions in process optimization are briefly discussed."