Das Projekt "Advanced integration of energy conversion, production processes, and waste management in chemical batch plants" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Institut de Thermique, Laboratoire d'Energetique Industrielle durchgeführt. The production of chemicals on industrial scale heavily relies on the availability of utilities such as energy in different forms (e.g. steam, electricity, brine), cooling water, refrigeration and others. The efficiency of utility usage in chemical industry is primarily defined by two major factors, the efficiency of the utility generation (e.g. steam production) and the efficiency in using the generated utilities in the production process. Waste management is another issue since it may lead to energy consumptions or productions to be integrated with the production processes. The goal of the project is to develop a methodology for designing energy integrated batch chemical plants with an emphasis on waste management issues and process efficiency. It will lead to more energy-efficient chemical production by defining optimal integration configurations beween energy conversion, production processes, and waste management while considering all boundary conditions of chemical batch plants. The challenge will be to introduce the energy conversion and the waste treatment processes into the analysis: how to convert energy resources into useful energy ?, how to integrate waste treatment and recycling operations ?, how to realise energy recovery ? in batch processes chemical plants. A major issue will be analysis of the interface between the processes (transformation of raw material into products and by-products) and the utility system (energy conversion and waste treatment/recycling) and of the consequences in terms of process engineering decisions and process design methodology. A computer aided methodology will be developed. It will integrate tools and concepts like process modelling, process integration techniques using MILP and MINLP optimization methods, systematic superstructure generation and superstructure management and multi-objective optimisation techniques. The research project targets the realisation of two Ph. D. thesis to be conducted in collaboration between EPFL and ETHZ. Thesis 1 : Process integration method for the combined design of multiproduct -multipurpose batch plants integrating energy conversion and waste management will be realised In the Industrial Energy Systems Laboratory of EPFL. Thesis 2 : Process design method for the integration of new production recipes in multiproduct, multipurpose batch plants considering energy requirements, waste treatment and recycling options, and environmental impact will be realised in the Safety and Environmental Technology group of ETHZ. A synthetic case study reflecting the complexity of real plants will be used as a testbed.