“…The heuristic approach can search large spaces of candidate solutions to identify optimal or near-optimal solutions at a reasonable computational cost, but it is unable to guarantee either feasibility or optimization, and, in many cases, it does not indicate how close a certain feasible solution is to the optimum [33][34][35]. A wide range of direct search methods have been developed from heuristic optimization, such as genetic algorithms, evolutionary programming, differential evolution, genetic programming, evolutionary strategy, particle swarm optimization, and artificial bee colonies [36,37]; however, a theoretical analysis of convergence is not available, which is a major shortcoming [16,38]. A variety of approaches considering uncertainties in the optimization of chemical processes have been reported in the open literature [39,40].…”