Bart Hamers

Process design of integrated reaction and membrane separation by organic solvent nanofiltration using evolutionary algorithms

Abstract This paper shows a model-based design method of an integrated reaction and membrane separation process applied to the ligand-assisted hydroformylation of cyclooctene to cyclooctanecarbaldehyde. In order to demonstrate the economic potential of the applied organic solvent nanofiltration (OSN) membrane technology, the focus is set on cost optimisation varying simultaneously process configuration and process conditions. The process model is fed with kinetic data of cyclooctene hydroformylation reaction kinetics (TU Eindhoven) and experimental data of OSN membrane permeation (Evonik Industries AG). The resulting Mixed-Integer Non-Linear Programming (MINLP) problem is solved using an evolutionary algorithm. For the optimal processes, cost structures are presented and discussed.