Optimal heating profiles in tubular reactors with solid‐phase axial wall conduction for isothermal operation

Abstract

Optimal heat input profiles to maintain near isothermal operation in endothermic tubular reactors with axial solid-phase conduction were derived using a onedimensional steady state plug flow model capturing the main transport phenomena in flow reactors. A cost criterion to minimize the deviation from isothermality was defined and optimal control theory is applied to calculate the optimal heating profiles as a function of position. It is shown the perfect isothermality is mathematically possible only if the wall conduction term is infinitesimally small. Using singular optimal control theory, analytical expressions of the input profiles are derived including a simple criterion for near-isothermal operation in terms of dimensionless reactor parameters.

Optimal control in reactive processing for fine chemicals and polymers in stirred jacketed batch and semi-batch reactors: A bibliography

“…Last but not least, configurations other than stirred could be considered as candidates: plug-flow reactor (Venkateswaran et al 180 , Wang 1821182 , etc. ), in terms of reactive process studied, variety of schemes also, high-pressure reactions (Khazraei and Dhib 183 , Kong et al 184 , etc.…”