LAUSR

Abstract In this study, we focus on developing continuous reactor network models able to produce rigid polyols under strict product and safety specifications. At the same time, we determine the optimal decision profiles that lead to minimum capital cost. Decision variables include the feed rates of initiator, monomers and catalyst, reactor temperature, residence time, number and location of monomer injection points. Moreover, we narrow down the types of continuous reactors that can be part of the network to two: plug flow reactor (PFR) with multiple feed injection points and continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR). The PFR model is a differential algebraic equation (DAE) optimization problem. The simultaneous collocation method is applied to transform the DAE into a mixed integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) problem. An iterative algorithm is proposed to solve the MINLP, where binary variables are manually fixed. The result of this strategy shows that the reactor configuration with minimum capital cost is a PFR with ten monomer injection points.