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Abstract: Systems technologies emerge with a powerful potential to support the deployment and design of future biorefineries. The chemical industry experiences a steady growth in the use of renewables induced by the gradual depletion of oil, uncertainties in energy supplies and a commanding requirement to reduce GHG emissions and save the planet. Renewables introduce an impressive range of options with biorefining at the center of attention as an emerging industrial concept, uniquely attached to chemical engineering and aiming to transform plant-derived biomass into a variety of products including transport fuels, platform chemicals, polymers, and specialty chemicals. In competing with conventional processes, biorefineries should match maximum efficiencies with better design and process integration. The paper highlights the pivotal role of systems technology to foster innovation, preview options, and support high-throughput computational experimentation, arguing that systems tools are largely under-deployed. Systems-enabled platforms could instead function as powerful environments to generate ideas for integrated designs and offer tremendous services to the complex and large problems produced by the numerous portfolios of feedstocks, unknown portfolios of products, multiple chemistries, and multiple processing paths. Complexities certainly exceed capabilities of previous methodologies but established achievements and experience with similar problems are excellent starting points for future contributions. Besides a general discussion, the paper outlines opportunities for innovation in design, concept-level synthesis, process integration, and the development of supply chains. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Separation processes account for more than half of capital and operating costs in chemical manufacturing. Separations are the energy intensive operations in the chemical industry. Rising energy consumption combined with the environmental impact increases the need for energy saving separation processes. Fortunately complex column networks have the potential for major energy savings estimated to range between 30 and 70% over simple column configuration. In this paper, a computer-aided synthesis method is introduced to synthesize optimal complex column arrangements which encode the cost and states of global solutions with minimum user input. A robust feasibility criterion helps select design and operating conditions for the entire network that can be realized in practice. Our method builds on thermodynamic transformations entitled temperature collocation which provides crucial advantages to determine the operating conditions, structure, and size of the separation network for achieving the desired product cuts. The computational approach guarantees realizable column profiles, which can be validated with industrially accepted simulation software such as AspenHysys and AspenPlus. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]