Methods from Discrete Mathematics for the Synthesis and Control of Chemical Processes

In recent years continuous chromatographical processes have attained an increasing inter-est in the production of pure chemical components, in particular in the pharmaceutical in-dustry. Based on the true moving bed process the simulatec moving bed (SMB) process with a simultaneous shift of the inlet and outlet points in a multicolumn system has been investigate and successfully implemented in practice. However, the traditional SMB process exhibits several disadvantages which could be avoided by a more flexible regime of shifting the inlet and outlet positions at different moments during the time intervall. To find an opti-mal process regime for the SMB with asynchronous shift, a detailed mathematical model based on the numerical solution of the underlying partial differential equations and the ap-plication of advanced methods of discrete mathematics and integer programming is needed. The mathematical model and solution strategies will be verified by performing se-lected experiments using a partly available lab scale SMB unit.