Marie Sklodowska Curie IF Action 2018 at the Engineering Department of the Salamanca University

The University of Salamanca has strong record in the design of renewable based processes from the use biomass to produce a large number of chemicals and fuels, to the use of wind, geothermal and solar energy to produce chemicals and power. It is a reference in Europe and well positioned in the community of process system engineering. The aim of the group has been the use of systematic approach to provide guidance in the emerging renewable based chemical industry. Novel promising processes have been designed and key contacts with industry have diversified the focus and extended it into product design and simultaneous process and product design. For details on the work, you can visit (http://diarium.usal.es/marianom3/)

Integration of renewable based processes.

The challenge of the use of renewable sources is the variable and uncertain quality and availability. Furthermore, most of the process still require fossil based energy or raw materials. While process design is the first stage in the analysis of the future use of renewables at industrial scale, the operation of the system within a chemical complex is a difficult task. However, it is the key to sustainable and profitable operation. The project aims to determine the optimal operation of renewable based processes in the context of integrated biorefineries and/or chemical complexes. A mathematical optimization framework and advance simulation techniques will be used to optimize the operation and performance of such integrated complexes aiming at reducing the contribution of fossil based sources of raw materials and energy and addressing uncertainty. Novel systems and algorithms will be developed to address this problem to reduce the costs of the process, the investment and minimizing the environmental impact.