Henrique A Matos

• PhD with Habilitation
• Professor (Full) at University of Lisbon (Instituto Superior Técnico)

In the original publication [...]

The water-energy nexus, dealing with all potential interdependencies between water and energy resources, may be promoted throughout various practices, with a part of these still not being implemented or even conceptualized. In the context of end-use sectors, several types of water systems are installed. These water systems necessarily consume energ...

The development of sustainable biofuels can help to reduce the reliance on fossil fuels and mitigate the impact of climate change. This study analyzes bioethanol production from agro-forestry residual biomass, namely eucalyptus residues and corn stover. The study includes process simulation using Aspen Plus software, followed by economic analysis a...

Resumo O carbonato de dietila (DEC) surge como uma solução sustentável para substituir dois importantes aditivos de combustível éter metil-terc-butílico (MTBE) e o éter etil-terc-butílico (ETBE). Estudos em escala de bancada mostram que o DEC pode ser produzido por carbonilação de etanol, que é uma rota verde que envolve a reação direta de CO2 e et...

The Chinese government has unveiled its commitment to attain carbon neutrality by 2060. Central to this strategic endeavour is the integration of hydrogen as a preeminent energy vector in the emerging energy paradigm. This chapter analyses the viability of electrolysis as a central mechanism for supplying hydrogen, with a specific focus on green hy...

Due to the growth in the consumption of avocado in recent years, the amount of waste caused by avocado peel and seed has increased. Avocado waste can be transformed into valuable products such as energy, biofuels, and biological products using integrated processes in a biorefinery. This paper considers the detailed modeling, simulation, and optimiz...

The most recent sustainability policies of each region of the world conjointly define that economic activities shall follow the principles of natural resource use minimisation, as well as eco-efficiency and circular economy promotion, in addition to the specific objectives defined in each policy. Most recently, a group of researchers has proposed i...

Current economic and environmental pressure encourages companies to invest and reform processes in a sustainable way. However, the decision on the best sustainable investment in a given industry may not be as straightforward as given by the independent economic and environmental indicators. Analyzing such indicators for investment in process altern...

The calcium-looping (CaL) process comprises an endothermic calcination reaction, where CaO and CO 2 are generated from CaCO 3 , and its reverse exothermic carbonation reaction. CaL is promising for thermochemical energy storage (TCES) in concentrating solar power plants. The CaL-TCES process includes: a calciner where solar energy is transformed in...

The current socioeconomic and environmental concerns envisage en::es to make sustainable investments and improvements. However, sustainable investment selec:on in a given industry might not be straighQorward from the several technological alterna:ves available.

Current economic and environmental pressure encourages companies to invest and reform processes in a sustainable way. However, the decision on the best sustainable investment in a given industry may not be as straightforward as given by the independent economic and environmental indicators. Analyzing such indicators for investment in process altern...

In the oil and gas industry, wax formation and deposition are common problems, particularly during production and transportation. To better understand the expected behaviour of a given waxy crude oil and consequently select the best solution to prevent wax deposition, it is vital to conduct laboratory tests or numerical simulations to model its per...

Within the oil and gas industry, there is unanimity that wax deposits-driven pipeline blockages are a critical environmental concern and an economic liability of up to billions of dollars. However, a quantitative assessment of such an impact and, especially, of the different individual impacts that add up is absent from the current scientific liter...

Waste heat recovery (WHR) has been regarded as a viable method to improve energy efficiency and promote sustainability in industry. The operation of high energy consuming thermal processes in industry generates high quantities of thermal losses, thus being associated to a great waste heat potential. In this sequence, several technologies have emerg...

Partial and total blockages due to wax deposition in wells and pipelines gather consensus as a billion-dollar problem in the oil and gas industry. However, an exact quantification is still required for production shifts towards heavy and paraffinic oils, extreme climate regions, and ultra-deep offshore oilfields. Motivated by such a problem, this r...

The improvement of water and energy use is an important concern in the scope of improving the overall performance of industrial process plants. The investment in energy efficiency comprehended by the most recent sustainability policies may prove to be an effective response to the fall of energy intensity rates associated with the economic crisis br...

Thermochemical technologies (TCT) enable the promotion of the sustainability and the operation of energy systems, as well as in industrial sites. The thermochemical operations can be applied for energy storage and energy recovery (alternative fuel production from water/wastewater, in particular green hydrogen). TCTs are proven to have a higher ener...

An advanced comprehensive and transient multiphase model for a trickle bed reactor with solid foam packings was developed. A new simulation model for isothermal three‐phase (gas–liquid–solid) catalytic tubular reactor models was presented where axial, radial, and catalyst layer effects were included. The unique feature of this model is that the mat...

The meat industry generates a large amount of animal by-products not only derived from the slaughter process but also due to the losses and waste of meat products along the supply chain, contributing to the world’s food loss and waste problem. Yearly, 1.7 Mt of meat in the European retail sector and 20% of meat for consumption is wasted in this sec...

The improvement of water and energy use in the industrial sector is an important concern to improve the overall techno-economic performance of single plants. The most recent EU strategy for energy system integration has been treating these issues in the redaction of its first pillar, which is based on the relations between the promotion of circular...

The present contribution addresses the design of feedback control in a biodiesel washing column with structured packing. The column dynamics is described with a pseudo-homogeneous dispersion model previously developed in gPROMS® ModelBuilder and validated against industrial data. The operation of the extraction column was analysed for scenarios whe...

The improvement of water and energy use in the industrial sector is an important concern for decarbonisation of industries, as well as to improve the overall techno-economic performance of single plants. The improvement of water efficiency, in particular, is a potential approach in the context of its interdependencies to energy use, comprehended by...

A comprehensive multiphase model was developed for a trickle bed reactor with solid foam packings. Three-dimensional dynamic mass and energy balances in the three phases of heterogeneously catalysed reaction systems were implemented, and the mass and heat transfer resistances in the gas-liquid and liquid-solid phases and inside the pores of the cat...

A two-level MINLP model is used for water network optimisation of large sites, composed of several independent plants. At the lowest level, the water consumption within a given plant is first minimised, considering feasible connections between the units of this plant, using a predefined set of interplant connections and capacities. During the secon...

Calcium-looping (CaL) is a promising post-combustion CO2 capturing technology, showing high compatibility with the cement industry. Nevertheless, this technology is still under development, and its implementation still leads to higher operating costs. Aiming cost reduction, the influence of using alternative fuels, commonly used in the kiln of ceme...

An advanced comprehensive and transient multiphase model for a trickle bed reactor with solid foam packings was developed. A new simulation model for isothermal three-phase (gas–liquid–solid) catalytic tubular reactor models was presented where axial, radial and catalyst layer effects were included. The gas, liquid and solid phase mass balances inc...

In the petroleum industry, oil and water emulsions are frequent, not only in oilfield operations but also during the transportation and refining processes. Once depicting emulsion formation and stabilization, it is essential to analyse how it is possible to reverse the process, demulsifying the emulsion. Depending on operating conditions and fluid...

To predict the superficial ground temperature due to solar radiation as a function of the depth and rock physical properties, the Finite Volume Method was employed upon an energy conservation model. ANSYS Transient Thermal was selected to simulate a 3D geological volume, 1625 m wide, 2000 m long and with variable height as a function of topographic...

This paper presents a novel compact system of liquefied natural gas (LNG) regasification/electricity generation, with a two-stage cascade Rankine cycle, using the ternary mixtures methane-ethylene-propane (CH4-C2H4-C3H8) and ethane-propane-butane (C2H6-C3H8-C4H10) in the first and second stages, respectively, with seawater as the hot utility and LN...

Deposition of waxes, asphaltenes, scales or hydrates is one of the most challenging operational problems in the oil and gas industry, both during production and transportation. Direct inspection procedures, such as employing a closed-circuit television system, allow visual assessment of the blockage, yet discretely in time and, consequently, of low...

Liquid organic hydrogen carriers (LOHCs) can be used for long-term storage and long-distance transport of hydrogen. Here, hydrogen (H2) is loaded into the organic molecule through a hydrogenation process and then unloaded through the reverse process (dehydrogenation). These organic molecules allow hydrogen to be handled at ambient conditions and tr...

The ceramic industry is a sector within process industry associated to a high energy intensity which is owe to the operation of thermal processes such as firing, drying, spray drying and boiling. These processes are associated to high thermal energy losses (waste heat). As such, the adoption of waste heat recovery (WHR) technologies and strategies...

This work studies the oil extraction and recovery of bioactive compounds from Brazilian and Mexican avocado seeds and peels of Hass cultivar using Soxhlet (SE) with hexane, ethanol, and ethyl acetate as solvents; and supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) with ethanol and ethyl acetate as cosolvents. Also, the fatty acids (FAs) profile, total phenoli...

Although the absorption of formaldehyde is a crucial stage within its production process, the number of models available in the literature is limited. The complexity of the absorption of formaldehyde in water, in which chemical reactions in the liquid phase are combined with multicomponent mass transfer, makes the development of an adequate process...

Have not only water-in-oil emulsions been a ubiquitous flow assurance challenge in oilfield operations, but also future perspectives suggest its increasing importance. In fact, as oil reserves are becoming depleted, the crude oil is becoming heavier, and the quantity of produced water is increasing. Understanding water-in-oil emulsions behaviour is...

This work aimed at the development of a model of an industrial formaldehyde production plant, to identify the process variables that will have the most impact in the improvement of the process efficiency and the increase of its profitability. The model of the process was developed and implemented in gPROMS® Modelbuilder 5.1.1, and the system analys...

A novel model is presented for the estimation of natural CaO-based sorbents carbonation reactivity decay during Calcium Looping carbonation-calcination cycles. The model consists of a cyclic framework of two sub-models, the Overlapping Grain Model and the novel proposed modified Rate Theory for the Pore Size Distribution model. The model was implem...

In line with the growing environmental awareness developed along the last decades, modern societies are urged to evolve into sustainable economics where the reuse of organic wastes represents the key feedstock for a green transaction. The oil phase obtained from different biomasses has the potential to be a source of food supplements, medicines, co...

Wax deposition inside the tubing walls endures being a critical operational challenge faced by the petroleum industry. The build-up of wax deposits may lead to the increase of pumping power, as well as the decrease of flow rate or, even, to the total blockage, with production losses and high operational costs. The current paper is a critical review...

Water–energy nexus has been recognized as an important and challenging issue, namely in industry. This is due to industry reforms, increasing demand, and climate change. This concept focuses on the link between energy and water infrastructure. Overall, there is limited understanding of the nature of this link, as it is assumed that water is not a t...

Wax deposition is one of the most challenging flow assurance issues in oil production processes. The related problems span from reservoirs to refineries, but their consequences can be particularly challenging when the affected area is difficult to reach, such as producing wells. The wax deposition in the areas adjoining the bore, the bore face, the...

In the present work, a first-principles model of methanol partial oxidation to formaldehyde in an industrial reactor was developed and the reaction kinetic and deactivation parameters estimated, taking advantage of the temperature profile established by the exothermic reaction. The catalyst deactivation was assigned primarily to hot-spot regions in...

The present work focuses on one of the more promising new post-combustion technologies using calcium-based materials, known as the “Ca-looping cycle” process, which endeavors to scrub CO2 from flue gases and syngases by using natural lime-based sorbents and which appears to potentially offer limited CO2 capture costs. So, the major driving force is...

This work focused on the simulation of an industrial system of formaldehyde absorption columns. For this purpose, a rate-based stage model of the system subjected to study was developed in gPROMS® Modelbuilder 4.2.0 and the simulation results compared with the operational values. The results are mainly in accordance with the plant data. The columns...

Our planet has been extensively impacted by the enormous consumption of natural resources and due to the high level of emissions coming from the productive systems. This situation is imposing severe burdens to the planet, leading to environmental disturbances and a huge level of pollution, which is causing a significant increase of human diseases....

The synthesis of hydrogen distribution networks has been an active area of research over the last two decades. The concept of hydrogen management based on an economic cost-driven analysis appeared late in the 1990s and was followed up by numerous insight-based and mathematical optimisation approaches in the 2000s. More recently, several superstruct...

The recent environmental restrictions to cut down pollutant gas emissions, along with the increasing drive to process heavy and sour crude oils, and the refining market trends toward gasoline and middle distillate fuels, have led to increased hydrogen demands associated with hydrotreating and hydrocracking processes. This manuscript addresses the s...

This work focussed on the deactivation of molybdenum oxide installed in an industrial methanol oxidation reactor. The deactivation parameters were estimated using the operational data obtained during the entire lifetime of the previously installed catalyst and validated with the results from the new catalyst. The deactivation was calculated as a fu...

FI2EPI is a freeware tool for performing Pinch Analysis-based Heat Integration. This tool supports Heat Integration studies on grassroot and retrofitting design up to thirty hot and cold streams. FI2EPI allows a comparative analysis between different energy integration scenarios. Those can be used on effective implementation of changes involving He...

The main goal of this subject is to give to the Chem. Eng. undergraduate students (2nd year of studies) an introduction to the spreadsheet solving the mass balance of chemical processes gathering some data from experimental work carried out in Lab. A small Chemical Process Case Study (different for each group) is use to illustrate the Excel spreads...

Hydrogen management practices in the petroleum industry aim at maximising refining gross margins while addressing environmental and production planning issues. A novel pinch analysis software tool – H2TT – establishes targets for the minimum hydrogen utility consumption prior to detailed network design. H2TT is an interactive spreadsheet-based soft...

This paper provides a description of a freeware tool for Process Integration (PI) - Fi²EPI that can be used in academia and industry. Using Pinch Analysis, it can handle several energy management scenarios as well as saving great amount of time in routine tedious calculations, well known to everyone working in PI projects. Integration between a pro...

Supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO 2) induces polymorphism in pharmaceutical drugs. However, it is unclear whether polymorphism is induced by the CO 2 antisolvent effect or simply by the spray-drying step involved in the scCO 2 antisolvent processes. Herein, this effect is clarified by using supercritical enhanced atomization techniques assisted wi...

We propose a new continuous-time formulation for the short-term scheduling of single stage batch plants with parallel units that allows for direct heat integration between hot and cold streams linked to production tasks of different products. This is in essence a bi-objective optimization problem in which makespan and utility consumption are the co...

This paper presents an optimization study of a distillation column for methanol and aqueous glycerol separation in a biodiesel production plant. Considering the available physical data of the column configuration, a steady state model was built for the column using Aspen-HYSYS as process simulator. Several sensitivity analysis were performed in ord...

This paper addresses the multi-objective optimization problem arising in the operation of heat integrated batch plants, where makespan and utility consumption are the two conflicting objectives. A new continuous-time MILP formulation with general precedence variables is proposed to simultaneously handle decisions related to timing, product sequenci...

Carbon dioxide has been extensively used as a green solvent medium for the cocrystallization of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) by replacing nocive organic solvents. This work, explores the mechanisms underlying a novel recrystallization method — Cocrystallization with Supercritical Solvent (CSS) — which enables APIs cocrystallization by s...

The European Commission presented the Life Cycle Assessment as the best framework for evaluating the environmental impact of products/processes. Companies are trying to reduce the environmental impact of products/processes, therefore the European Commission underlined the need for guidelines that select the most relevant impact categories depending...

In this paper, a cyclic scheduling problem from a batch pulp plant is used to test a new continuous-time, multiple time grid formulation. It can be employed in multistage multiproduct batch plants with a single unit per stage and complex interactions between immediate orders, which in this case take the form of integrated heating tasks. The results...

Nowadays, companies are looking for new sustainable design alternatives that improve their original processes. To assess the best design alternative, economic aspects have been the preferred indicators. However, environmental and social concerns should also be included in the decision process so that truly sustainable design alternatives can be fou...

This work addresses the application of a detailed Pinch Analysis modelling technique, developed in Excel/VBA, for a multipurpose refinery batch plant. This application is focused on developing a tool that enables a quick analysis of Heat Integration to improve the energy-efficiency by rescheduling the operations. The developed tool was used with a...

This paper addresses a multistage batch plant scheduling problem under energy constraints. These reflect the limited availability of a thermal heating utility that is shared among parallel digesters of different capacities for the production of pulp. Depending on the processing sequence, more or less steam will be available for a given digester, wh...

Purpose: To prepare and thoroughly characterize a new polymorph of the broad-spectrum antibiotic minocycline from its hydrochloride dehydrate salts. Methods: The new minocycline hydrochloride polymorph was prepared by means of the antisolvent effect caused by carbon dioxide. Minocycline recrystallized as a red crystalline hydrochloride salt, sta...

Several methods to evaluate the environmental process impact assessment of industrial chemical processes have been presented in the literature. Although these methods follow the same steps (usually, characterisation, normalisation and weighting), each method addresses different impact categories, considering specific nomenclatures and using differe...

This paper presents a computational tool (PHEx) developed in Excel VBA for solving sizing and rating design problems involving Chevron type plate heat exchangers (PHE) with 1-pass-1-pass configuration. The rating methodology procedure used in the program is outlined, and a case study is presented with the purpose to show how the program can be used...

Due to the increase competition in the global markets, companies are increasingly receptive to new tools, which help them to improve their processes in terms of economic, environmental and social aspects. This paper aims to analyze an already existent retrofit tool called SustainPro in order to assess the level of input detail required for the anal...

This work evaluates the feasibility of the supercritical enhanced atomization (SEA) process to improve stability and delivery of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). This process was used to generate distinct microcomposites of a model API – theophylline (TPL) – namely pure TPL, theophylline-saccharin (TPL-SAC) co-crystal, and dispersions of e...

This paper presents a new relaxation technique to globally optimize mixed-integer polynomial programming problems that arise in many engineering and management contexts. Using a bilinear term as the basic building block, the underlying idea involves the discretization of one of the variables up to a chosen accuracy level (Teles, J.P., Castro, P.M.,...

Freezing is an important operation in biotherapeutics industry. However, water crystallization in solution, containing electrolytes, sugars and proteins, is difficult to control and usually leads to substantial spatial solute heterogeneity. Herein, we address the influence of the geometry of freezing direction (axial or radial) on the heterogeneity...

Chemical processes are continuously facing challenges from the demands of the global market related to economics, environment and social issues. This paper presents the development of a software tool (SustainPro) and its application to chemical processes operating in batch or continuous modes. The software tool is based on the implementation of an...

This paper discusses a power-based transformation technique that is especially useful when solving polynomial optimization problems, frequently occurring in science and engineering. The polynomial nonlinear problem is primarily transformed into a suitable reformulated problem containing new sets of discrete and continuous variables. By applying a t...

Simulation of cooling tower performance considering operating conditions away from design is typically based on the geometrical parameters provided by the cooling tower vendor, which are often unavailable or outdated. In this paper a different approach for cooling tower modeling based on equilibrium stages and Murphree efficiencies to describe heat...

The software Umberto Carbon Footprint calculates CO 2 footprint of products or activities. It is based on analysis of primary and secondary footprints during the product lifecycle. It uses the ecoinvent database to analyse individual contribution of the resources consumption required for the footprint of the final product.Umberto Carbon Footprint w...

The management of a tank farm at the end of a multi-product oil pipeline is rather complex to model and optimize. This is due to the fact that different products travel sequentially through the pipeline, resulting in variations in the specifications of the final products. Furthermore, the products are stored in specific tanks and customers must be...

Strangles is an extremely contagious and sometimes deadly disease of the Equidae. The development of an effective vaccine should constitute an important asset to eradicate this worldwide infectious disease. In this work, we address the development of a mucosal vaccine by using a Supercritical Enhanced Atomization (SEA) spray-drying technique. Aqueo...

A cogeneration system is used to produce hot water to heat up the high concentrated brine solution produced inside an integrated industrial salt plant. A part of that high concentrated brine solution could be sprayed into the surrounding ambient air, a few metres above the solar and thermal salt recrystallization ponds to increase the global proces...

We propose new mixed-integer linear programming models for the optimal design of water-using and wastewater treatment networks. These replace the original non-convex, nonlinear problems following parameterization of the concentration variables appearing in the bilinear terms resulting from the contaminant mass balances. The difference between the m...

This paper presents a case study of heat exchanger network (HEN) retrofit with the objective to reduce the utilities consumption in a biodiesel production process. Pinch analysis studies allow determining the minimum duty utilities as well the maximum of heat recovery. The existence of heat exchangers for heat recovery already running in the proces...