This week´s Advanced Process Modelling Forum in London saw leading process industry players describe how high-fidelity process modelling is increasingly at the heart of major economic decisions.
Keynote speaker Jan van Schijndel, Manager of XTL Development at Shell, described how process modelling is a key component in determining economically optimal synthesis of large-scale gas-to-liquid (GTL) plants such as the $18bn Pearl development in Qatar. Cayle Sharrock of South African GTL company SASOL described how high-fidelity models of the core Fischer-Tropsch reactor are used in plant-wide optimisations to substantially increase ROI for future designs.
Catalytic technologies provider Süd-Chemie described how advanced process modelling using detailed catalyst and reactor models allows the company not only to accelerate catalyst development but also to provide services to optimise customers´ operations, for example by maximising reactor catalyst life.
The forum is an annual event organised by Process Systems Enterprise (PSE), a leading supplier of Advanced Process Modelling technology and services. Attended by senior business and technology decision makers in pharmaceuticals, oil & gas, power generation, chemicals, petrochemicals, food, minerals & mining and other process industry sectors, it focuses on the creation of sustainable value through the application of high-accuracy predictive process modelling.
Andrew Green of the Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) explained the key role of system-wide modelling tools to help accelerate and de-risk carbon capture & storage (CCS) developments in the UK. The ETI has invested in a £3m project in which PSE and industry partners E.ON, EDF, Rolls-Royce and Petrofac are creating gCCS, a modelling environment for techno-economic decision support based on PSE´s gPROMS advanced process modelling platform.
Other presenters included Pfizer, Eli Lilly, GSK, SABIC, Sulzer Chemtech and research organisations TNO, the Rutgers University ERC-SOPS consortium and Imperial College London. Presentations described the application of model-based techniques to enhance manufacturing process design and scale-up, optimise operations, accelerate process innovation and manage new technology risk, including laboratory-to-industrial-process workflows for reducing time-to-market for new developments.
PSE announced the release of gSOLIDS 2.0, second-generation solids process modelling software, and v2.0 of its gCRYSTAL software for design, scale-up and optimisation of crystallisation processes. The company also provided a preview of v4.0 of its gPROMS advanced process modelling platform to be released later this year.
Organiser Mark Matzopoulos, PSE´s COO, says "advanced process modelling is about using predictive models to explore the design space rapidly, reduce uncertainty and make better, faster and safer decisions. The range and diversity of presentations at the forum illustrates the power of the technology to transform the way the process industries design and operate."
Editors: www.psenterprise.com/news/pr120420.html