| The problem of finding the best reactor system configuration has been considered in the chemical engineering literature since the 1940's. The problem was attacked, invariably, by isolating the reactor system and maximizing an objective function which usually was the yield or some linear combination of the reactor inlet and outlet compositions. However, there are numerous cases where it is not possible to uncouple the reactor problem from the rest of the process. The reason for this is that the optimum values of the reactor design variables (e.g., the reactor temperature, the limiting reactant conversion, the molar ratio of the reactants, etc.) are determined by the economic tradeoffs between raw materials costs and recycle costs, where the recycle costs depend on the structure of the flowsheet (i.e., the distillation sequence, the heat exchanger network, etc.). However, in order to design the heat exchanger network and the separation system, one needs to know the reactor exit flows. Thus, there is normally a coupling between the best reactor design and the design of the equipment in the recycle loop. This thesis presents the results of our efforts in providing solutions to the reactor synthesis and design problem considered in the context of the complete chemical process. |
