Use of Heuristics in the Process Design Stages for the Design of Hydrogen Recovery Systems

Abstract

In this paper, we study new recycles structures and hydrogen recovery systems, which are generated by including the concept of mass exchange networks (MENs) in making design decisions.
When designing a process following the hierarchical procedure of Douglas (1985) advances in the design generate more detailed versions of the process with an increasing number of blocks interconnected by process streams. The procedure ends with a heat integration of the process streams already defined in previous stages. On the other hand, the synthesis techniques of MENs are used to decide on the exchange of mass between process streams once these have been defined. However, the concept of MENs can be used at an earlier stage in the hierarchy of Douglas, generating structures and separation systems alternatives. With the new design alternatives, a significant reduction of the hydrogen fed to the process is achieved.