| dc.description.abstract | Demand for safer and more efficient chemical reactors has given rise to two kinds of research problems. One path has focused on finding new reactor designs that make reaction systems inherently safer compared to large conventional reactors and another direction has focused on building algorithms to make classical reactors (CSTR, Batch, Tubular) safer and more efficient. This dissertation is an attempt to tackle important problems in both directions. In the first part of this dissertation, design problems in two inherently safer and compact unconventional chemical reactors are studied namely, microreactors and heat exchangers. Using well established tools such as parametric sensitivity analysis, order of magnitude analysis and optimal control theory, the effect of solid phase axial heat conduction on isothermal operation and hotspot formation in microreactors, and the effect of catalyst distribution in thermal coupling in heat exchanger reactors is investigated. The second part of this dissertation focuses on making inherently unsafe conventional chemical reactors (such as CSTRs) safer and robust. To this end, an observer-based fault diagnosis scheme is developed for a general class of input affine nonlinear systems with and without measurement and process noises. Throughout the study, the fault diagnosis scheme is applied to chemical engineering examples including non-isothermal exothermic CSTRs. | en |
