Jesus Rafael Alcantara-Avila- PhD. Chemical Engineering
- Lecturer at Kyoto University
Jesus Rafael Alcantara-Avila
- PhD. Chemical Engineering
- Lecturer at Kyoto University
About
59
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780
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Introduction
Current institution
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April 2018 - present
October 2012 - March 2013
April 2013 - March 2018
Publications
Publications (59)
The generation of Fine Bubbles (FB) using Venturi-type nozzles has been researched experimentally and mathematically using CFD simulations. Nevertheless, little has been discussed about the addition of obstacles in the convergent or divergent parts of the nozzle. Therefore, this research evaluates the performance of six fine bubble generation nozzl...
Typically, the synthesis problem starts from a set of preestablished connections between steams and unit operations resulting in distillation sequences, which can be included into superstructure representations and reformulated as mathematical programming problems. Nevertheless, in the last decades novel approaches to process synthesis that depart...
Sustainable process design problems are multi-faceted approaches that pose challenges in terms of the evaluation of indicators to optimize inherent safety, economics, and control. In recent years, chemical engineering has taken advantage of recent advances in process systems engineering more notably considering intensification to generate green and...
Reactive distillation (RD) is a promising alternative that can produce high-purity Silane. However, it requires a large amount of expensive refrigerant to condense it. Therefore, this work assesses the feasibility of installing intermediate condensers at stages in the RD column to reduce the utility cost. Thus, RD columns with one and two Intermedi...
Apple pomace (AP) is a by-product generated from the transformation of fresh apple into different products of the food industry; however, it remains largely underutilized. This work presents a proposal and bidimensional analysis (economic and environmental) for biorefineries to produce n–butanol, acetone, and ethanol, utilizing AP in a Mexican cont...
This work presents a synthesis method for deriving distillation process structures to separate a ternary mixture with a homogeneous azeotrope. First, the liquid composition space is divided into small subspaces, each of which is assigned to a distillation module. Then, all of the connections among the heating, cooling, feed, product, and distillati...
This work presents a comparison of several distillation structures that can attain energy and cost savings. The Different Pressure Thermally Coupled Distillation (DPTCD) was studied to increase its energy-savings potential by exploiting heat integration among stages. Therefore, a Mixed-Integer Linear Programming (MILP) problem was proposed and solv...
Solar cell manufacturing is based on solar grade silicon which can be obtained using Silane as precursor instead of Trichlorosilane in the well-known Siemen’s process. The silane production can be done in a reactive distillation (RD) column in which reaction and separation take place simultaneously. The typical RD column has one reactive section, b...
This work presents a synthesis problem for the separation and purification of Ethanol using extractive distillation. Glycerol was the chosen solvent to separate the azeotropic mixture. The synthesis problem was based on the Infinite-DimEnsionAl State-space (IDEAS) approach to discretize the liquid composition space represented by a ternary diagram....
The production of cost-effective Silane is paramount for reducing the cost in the solar photovoltaic industry to make it a more competitive renewable energy source. Thus, the production of Silane through reactive distillation (RD) is an alternative that reduces the equipment size, cost, and operation in comparison with a typical reaction-separation...
Process Intensification (PI) is a vast and growing area in Chemical Engineering, which deals with the enhancement of current technology to enable improved efficiency; energy, cost, and environmental impact reduction; small size; and better integration with the other equipment. Since process intensification results in novel, but complex, systems, it...
Heat integration is one of the most used energy conservation methods in chemical processes, and it typically involves the heat transfer from the vapor stream entering a condenser and the liquid stream entering a reboiler. Nevertheless, this work exploits the idea of heat integration between stages in which heat is supplied at a temperature higher t...
Though a global optimization procedure using a randomized algorithm and a commercial process simulator is relatively easy to implement for complex design problems (i.e., intensified design processes), a dominant problem is their heavy computation load. As the process simulation is repeatedly executed to calculate the objective function, it is inevi...
Intensified multi-partition dividing wall distillation columns (DWCs) have attracted the attention of academy and industry as they present benefits in the capital and operating costs over traditional and single-partition distillations systems. This work investigates and compares the economic and dynamic performance of commonly used four-product DWC...
Este
trabajo presenta los resultados preliminares del análisis de costos de una biorefinería para la producción de Acetona, Butanol, Etanol ( y
electricidad a partir de bagazo de manzana ( La
Este trabajo presenta el diseño conceptual de diversos esquemas para un proceso de purificación de Acetona-Butanol-Etanol (ABE) y butanol-etanol (BE) integrando dos esquemas de fermentación para el bagazo de manzana (BM). Uno corresponde a un proceso en el cual se emplea destilación extractiva (ABE1). El otro corresponde al proceso de fermentación...
The innovation of chemical processes strongly depends on finding a new technology or combining two or more existing technologies in new ways. Nevertheless, at early design stages, many of the degrees of freedom are restricted to known structures or operating conditions. In this chapter, an optimization methodology is proposed to generate energy-eff...
This work addresses two key issues in the design of control systems based on PI lineal controllers for intensified reactive distillation configurations to produce diphenyl carbonate: (i) the practical controllability of the process that inherently leads to the setting of control configurations, and (ii) the tuning of corresponding PI controllers in...
Environmental pollution, particularly that caused by the presence of heavy metals in wastewater, is a serious problem. Therefore, heavy metals should be prevented from reaching the natural environment or removed from polluted wastewater. Adsorption is a very economical, simple, effective, highly versatile process for removing harmful pollutants fro...
This work shows a comparative assessment of open-loop and closed-loop processes to select, among a set of alternatives, the best distillation scheme regarding its controllability. A new point of view to assess the controllability using the information from the singular value decomposition (SVD) technique is proposed. In the research, the techniques...
It has been extensively proven that thermally coupled distillation columns can effectively use less energy than their conventional counterparts. Similarly, the extension to reactive systems has also shown that thermally coupled reactive distillation columns can reduce the energy consumption in comparison with their conventional reactive distillatio...
Heat-pump-assisted distillation columns such as the vapor recompression column (VRC), self-heat recuperation column (SHRC), and heat integration column (HIDiC) have attracted attention in industry because of their strong impact on energy savings in chemical processes. Compared to conventional distillation columns, these systems have the advantage o...
Fractionation of crude oil in crude distillation unit (CDU) is an energy intensive process. Fractionation is carried out based on the cutpoint temperatures, i.e., the tray temperature of the CDU at which a product stream is separated. Rigorous optimization of cutpoint temperature is required for the unceasing scheduling of the feed where a substant...
Fractionation of crude oil in crude distillation unit (CDU) is an energy intensive process. Fractionation is carried out based on the cutpoint temperatures, i.e., the tray temperature of the CDU at which a product stream is separated. Rigorous optimization of cutpoint temperature is required for the unceasing scheduling of the feed where a substant...
Fractionation of crude oil in crude distillation unit (CDU) is an energy intensive process. Fractionation is carried out based on the cutpoint temperatures, i.e., the tray temperature of the CDU at which a product stream is separated. Rigorous optimization of cutpoint temperature is required for the unceasing scheduling of the feed where a substant...
Microreactors and micro heat exchangers have very unique characteristics due to the small size of their channels. Our close examination of the properties of microchemical systems has resulted in the finding that microchannel reactor systems have modular structures, a feature which may be exploited to create novel systems. In microreactors, reagents...
In previous work [1] we showed an unusual temperature dependence for water adsorption in porous activated carbons, and hypothesized that the pore size plays a critical role in water adsorption in mesopores. In this paper, we shed further light on water adsorption in mesopores by investigating its dependence on temperature for a highly graphitized n...
Reactive Distillation is one of the most representative examples of Process Intensification due this technology allows to simplify and to unify the reaction and separation processes in only one equipment, reducing in this way the total cost of the process. However, the RD technology can be improved through energy integration in order to reduce the...
The simultaneous design and control optimization of intensified distillation sequences is a challenging topic that has partially been addressed by doing several simplifications in the process dynamics. This work aims to embed a controllability criterion in a global stochastic optimization algorithm that can solve single objective or multi-objective...
The reactive distillation process (RD) has been a focus of special interest in the creation of new processes with lower cost, environmental impact, and risk minimization because RD combines several process units in fewer devices. Nevertheless, the complexity in the design of reactive distillation process increases because of the several design vari...
Reactive distillation (RD) in quaternary systems has gained importance when one of the reagents is in excess. In this work, higher energy savings in a reactive distillation sequence is addressed to produce diphenyl carbonate, which is a crucial precursor of polycarbonate. Energy savings were attained through heat integration between the high-pressu...
The use of conventional reactive distillation columns for silane production has the disadvantage of large consumption of refrigerant because the silane is produced in the dome of the column and this must be condensed at about −78 °C. The incorporation of intercondensers may improve the cost and safety of the system; however, a proper study for the...
Polycarbonate has a very extensive commercial application thanks to its multiple physical properties. The environmental problems associated with the conventional process to obtain polycarbonate by the phosgene route has stimulated the research of intensified schemes as is the case of the reactive distillation for the synthesis of Diphenyl Carbonate...
Silane and chlorosilanes are essential materials for manufacturing silicon solar cells, glass microscope slides, oxidation masks, and corrosion-resistant films among other products. Monochlorosilane (SiH3Cl) and dichlorosilane (SiH2Cl2) are produced on a large scale as intermediates in the synthesis of silane (SiH4) by disproportionation of trichlo...
Heat integration between vapor and liquid streams has been widely used in chemical and petrochemical plants for conventional distillation processes as an alternative to reduce the energy consumption. However, with the advances that have been proposed in intensified distillation processes in the last couple of decades, heat-integrated alternatives t...
This work shows that it is feasible to obtain a high purity of silane over 99% and almost complete conversion of trichlorosilane to silane and silicon tetrachloride by a typical reactive distillation column. Nevertheless, the normal reactive distillation column possesses the shortage of high refrigeration requirement. By removing heat at temperatur...
Distillation columns with adiabatic stages inherently entail high entropy production because heat is only supplied to the reboiler and removed from the condenser. DDC (Diabatic distillation columns) can reduce the entropy production and they can be realized through the installation of heat exchangers in series at the stages in the column by circula...
This work presents a reactive distillation column for the catalytic disproportionation of trichlorosilane to silane which includes three consecutive reversible reactions. This reaction system is however characterized by a large distinction in the boiling points of the components, which make the reactive distillation extremely favored. Nevertheless,...
Isosteric heat of adsorption is indispensable in probing the energetic behavior of interaction between adsorbate and solid, and it can shed insight into how molecules interact with a solid by studying the dependence of isosteric heat on loading. In this study, we illustrated how this can be used to explain the difference between adsorption of non-p...
Cryogenic distillation is very similar to other distillation systems except it is used to separate chemicals with very low boiling points (e.g. propylene/propane mixture). In the case of cryogenic distillation, a refrigeration system must be coupled with the condenser, which is at the lowest possible temperature. Therefore, the temperature differen...
Basic copper acetate can be obtained by mixing copper acetate with sodium hydroxide solutions. However, the quality of the resulting crystals is usually poor. An unknown peak appears in its X-ray diffraction pattern, and moreover, the intensity of the peak varies from sample to sample. In this study, effect of mixing methods on the quality of the b...
Propylene is one of the most important products in the petrochemical industry, which is used as raw material for a wide variety of products. The propylene/propane separation is a very energy-intensive process because their boiling points are quite similar. In addition, at atmospheric conditions, their boiling points are -47.6 °C and -42.1 °C, respe...
Recent developments in energy conservation have sought internal heat integration through side heat exchangers as an attractive energy-efficient alternative to reduce the energy consumption in conventional distillation. However, it is difficult to estimate the effect on the reduction of reboiler duty through internal heat integration without executi...
Vaious column structures and configurations, which include conventional and thermally coupled columns, were evaluated to obtain fuel grade ethanol. Energy conservation through heat integration and vapor recompression was taken into account to derive the optimal flowsheet. Three entrainers, ethylene glycol (EG), propylene glycol (PG) and glycerin (G...
In this work, it is our aim to develop a software tool that realizes global optimization through stochastic methods where the dynamic behavior is considered. In general, this tool takes the simulation data from rigorous simulation from Aspen Plus® to an algorithm written in Matlab® through an interface with Excel® using Macros. This tool already ha...
Various column structures, configurations, and energy conservation methods have been proposed to reduce the cost and energy consumption in distillation sequences, such as thermally coupling or heat integration. In this work, a synthesis method of optimal separation sequences including thermally coupled columns is proposed. In the proposed method, v...
The synthesis of optimal distillation sequences remains to be solved in the process systems engineering because several new distillation alternatives have been suggested to diminish the fixed and operating cost during the last decades. These alternatives include thermally coupled, externally heat integrated, and internally heat integrated columns,...
Thermally coupled distillation systems (TCDS) have been proposed to perform distillation separation tasks with the incentive of achieving lower energy consumption levels with respect to conventional distillation sequences. In particular, the presence of recycle streams for TCDS schemes has influenced the notion that control problems might be expect...
It has been proved that thermally coupled configurations can lower the energy consumptions around 30% in comparison to conventional distillation schemes for the separation of ternary mixtures. These potential energy savings have motivated research efforts on thermally coupled configurations for four or more component mixtures. Besides the significa...
In this work we developed a comparative study of the energy consumption, thermodynamic efficiency, total annual costs and control properties (using the singular value decomposition technique in the frequency domain) of five thermally coupled distillation sequences for the separations of quaternary mixtures. The results show that the structure has d...
Questions
Questions (7)
By discretizing one optimization variable, a complex nonlinear optimization problem can be reformulated as a linear optimization problem, however depending on the selection of that optimization variable, the solution can be trapped in local minima or maxima. To solve the problem, I have already used space discretization of that variable and the pseudo-newton method. I am considering to use PSO, but I am wondering it it is really worthy it?
thanks,
I have been researching about extractive distillation to purify ethanol. I have use only liquid solvents. However, some works have used salts. In your experience, is there any advantage in using salts? Thank you.
In a recent talk with a colleague, he mentioned that in Chemical Processes it is not worthy to perform frequency analyses at values higher that 100 Hz, is this true? if so, why? is there any reference for that?
Late I have been wondering if there terms are equivalent. I have found this: "Exergy is always destroyed when a process involves a temperature change. This destruction is proportional to the entropy increase of the system together with its surroundings." So my next question should be HOW PROPORTIONAL?
Prior dynamic simulations, a distillation column is designed and sized in Aspen Plus then exported to Aspen Dynamics. Can a distillation column be designed directly in Aspen Dynamics?
Typically, an appropriate temperature difference for heat exchange at moderate and high temperatures is 10C, however, in several processes which include refrigeration systems, heat exchange must be done as low as -90 C, -40 C, etc. What temperature difference is appropriate in such cases?
Glycerine can be used as an environmentally friendly solvent in extractive distillation, however, due to its thermal decomposition at high temperatures, there might be some limitations for its applicability.
