Abstract:

A chemical process transforms feed materials into desired products, necessitating the exchange of heat and work between the process and the environment. Optimizing process performance requires careful selection of chemical pathways, process parameters, and heat/workflows. The reversible process sets the upper-performance limit for sustainable design, thereby setting a target for process design. We propose using a plot of enthalpy (H) against Gibbs Free Energy (G) to represent, synthesize, and analyze heat and workflows in chemical processes. This graphical approach is particularly useful for identifying and assessing process reversibility. We define the Thermodynamic Attainable Region (AR T ) as the set of all (delta)H and (delta)G across all possible processes that convert a given feed(s) into specified products. In this talk, we will present a methodology for calculating the AR T . By leveraging the visual representation of the AR T , we can systematically analyze and compare the inherent heat and workflows of different processes, feeds, and products. We will consider some simple examples to illustrate the impact of the selection of chemical pathways, process parameters, and feeds on process heat and workflows and reversibility.