Regular Article
From conceptual design to process design optimization: a review on flowsheet synthesis
1
Université de Toulouse, Laboratoire de Génie Chimique UMR CNRS/INPT/UPS, allée Emile Monso, 31 432 Toulouse Cedex, France
2
IFP Energies nouvelles, Rond-point de l’échangeur de Solaize, BP 3, 69360 Solaize, France
* Corresponding author: ludovic.montastruc@ensiacet.fr
Received:
1
April
2019
Accepted:
3
September
2019
This paper presents the authors’ perspectives on some of the open questions and opportunities in Process Systems Engineering (PSE) focusing on process synthesis. A general overview of process synthesis is given, and the difference between Conceptual Design (CD) and Process Design (PD) is presented using an original ternary diagram. Then, a bibliometric analysis is performed to place major research team activities in the latter. An analysis of ongoing work is conducted and some perspectives are provided based on the analysis. This analysis includes symbolic knowledge representation concepts and inference techniques, i.e., ontology, that is believed to become useful in the future. Future research challenges that process synthesis will have to face, such as biomass transformation, shale production, response to spaceflight demand, modular plant design, and intermittent production of energy, are also discussed.
© L. Montastruc et al., published by IFP Energies nouvelles, 2019
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
