Process control of an Open Plate Reactor

A new chemical reactor, the Open Plate Reactor, is being developed by Alfa Laval AB. It combines good mixing with high heat transfer capacity. With the new concept, highly exothermic reactions can be produced using more concentrated reactants. In the paper, the reactor type is presented and a process control system is developed.A utility system to provide the reactor with cooling water is designed and experimentally verified. The utility temperature controller is based on a mid-ranging control structure to increase the operating range of the hydraulic equipment.A Model Predictive Controller is proposed to maximize the reaction yield under hard input and state constraints. An extended Kalman filter is implemented to estimate unmeasured concentrations, disturbances and unknown model parameters. Simulations show that the designed process control system gives high reaction yield and ensures that the temperature inside the reactor does not exceed a pre-defined safety limit.