Monday, May 5, 2008
9-15

Real-time optimization of the biotechnological process for acrylic acid synthesis: determination of the optimality conditions

Betânia H. Lunelli1, Delba N. C. Melo1, Rubens Maciel Filho2, and Eduardo C. Vasco de Toledo3. (1) Laboratory of Optimization, Design and Advanced Control - Department of Chemical Processes - School of Chemical Engineering, State University of Campinas, Cidade Universitária Zeferino Vaz, P.O. Box:6066, ZIP: 13081-970, Campinas - SP, Brazil, (2) Department of Chemical Process – School of Chemical Engineering, State University of Campinas, Cidade Universitária, P.O. Box 6066, Campinas, Brazil, (3) Petrobras SA, Paulínia Refinery, Rodovia SP 332, KM 132, P.O. Box: 1, Paulínia, Brazil

The acrylic acid is one of the most important industrial chemical products. Usually it is obtained by oxidation of propylene that means using petrochemical feedstocks. The biotechnological route for it is production may be quite attractive compared to the conventional chemical processes, depending upon the level of conversion, so that it is necessary to work out towards biotechnological route based process improvement.  This work introduces an investigation study of the optimization and control of an alternative process for the acrylic acid production, to know, the biotechnological synthesis. The idea is to define the optimal operational conditions or the set points in the optimization layer and then to use them in the advanced control layer. The process integration is carried out with the two-layer approach. Initially, the task is to find optima values to maximize the acrylic acid yield. Posteriorly, it was seen that is interesting to maximize the yield of the intermediates products. In such study, it was possible to realize that the optimized value of the manipulated variable to maximize the intermediates products is different of the optimum value to maximize the acrylic acid concentration. This is an important feature to be understood in the definition of the operation and control strategies, since the intermediates products can be on-line monitored a long the process running time. 

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