JModelica.org Application – Robust Optimal Control for Chromatography Separation Processes

New results from a collaboration between Modelon and Lund University

A collaboration between Modelon and Lund University has recently generated two new journal publications. The project concerns the development of generic methods and tools for robust optimal control of high-pressure liquid chromatographic separation processes.

The optimization method used in the application is described in the article:

Magnusson, F.,  Åkesson, J., Dynamic Optimization in JModelica.org, Processes, 3:2, pp. 471–496, 2015

and the applied results are reported in:

Holmqvist, A., Andersson, C., Magnusson, F., Åkesson, J., Methods and Tools for Robust Optimal Control of Batch Chromatographic Separation Processes, Processes, 3:3, pp. 568-606, 2015.

Both articles are freely available as open access publications.

Engineers from chemical and process industries can find benefits from employing the described methodology for robust optimal control of their separation processes.

The advantages of the proposed robustification strategy are highlighted through the solution of a challenging ternary complex mixture separation problem for a hydrophobic interaction chromatography system. The study shows that penalizing the changes in the zero-order hold control gives optimal solutions with low sensitivity to uncertainty. A key result is that the robustified general elution trajectories outperformed the conventional linear trajectories both in terms of recovery yield and robustness.