SIMULTANEOUS SYNTHESIS OF MASS-EXCHANGE AND REGENERATION NETWORKS

A systematic procedure is developed for the simultaneous synthesis of primary transfer mass‐exchange networks and their associated mass‐exchange regeneration networks. The purpose of the primary transfer network is to preferentially transfer certain species from a set of rich streams to a set of lean streams. The regeneration network aims at regenerating any recyclable lean stream. The proposed procedure deals with the problem in two stages. In the first stage, a mixed‐integer nonlinear program is solved to minimize the cost of mass‐separating and regenerating agents. The solution of this program provides the location of the pinch points as well as the optimal flow rates of all the lean and the regenerative streams without any prior commitment to the network structure. In the second stage, a mixed‐integer linear program is solved to minimize the number of exchangers in both networks. An example problem with industrial relevance is solved to elucidate the merits offered by the devised synthesis procedure. Copyright © 1990 American Institute of Chemical Engineers