LAUSR

Abstract In the chemical process, reactor and distillation sequence are interconnected by the reactor effluent and recycle streams, and affect the heat exchanger network (HEN). A systematic method is proposed for synthesizing and optimizing the Reactor-Distillation sequence-Recycle-HEN (RDRH) system. In this method, an improved partition method is used to identify all feasible distillation sequences; each distillation sequence is integrated with the reactor, the recycle and HEN. This method can identify the RDRH system with the minimum energy consumption and the corresponding key parameters efficiently. A styrene unit is studied by the proposed method, the results are in good agreement with those identified based on the rigorous simulation of Aspen Plus, and the relative errors are less than 5.5%. The proposed method can be applied in the preliminary design for targeting the optimal flowsheet and parameters, comparing catalysts, and can be extended to optimize the flowsheet in the whole life cycle.