A systematic molecular design framework for an environmentally benign solvent recovery process

Computer Aided Molecular Design (CAMD) techniques have been extensively applied to design solvents for different applications. Most of the CAMD problems only aim at generating solvents that meet the predefined functionality. Nevertheless, it is important to consider the effect of solvent on the safety, health and environmental impacts during the recovery process. This paper presents a single stage CAMD framework that simultaneously quantifies the environmental impact of the solvent recovery process. The environmental impact of the process can be estimated through IChemE Sustainability Metrics. Besides, molecular properties that have an impact on the quantitative evaluation of the environmental impact of solvent recovery process are included in this framework. Weighted sum method coupled with Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) weighting approach is employed to solve the multi-objective molecular design framework. A case study on solvent design for residual oil extraction from palm pressed fiber is presented to illustrate the proposed framework. In this work, only energy balance around multistage evaporator is incorporated into CAMD formulation as energy required to recover the solvent contributes to the largest portion of the whole process. The results show that the designed solvents simultaneously possess target functionalities and reduce the environmental impact of solvent recovery process

Computer-aided design of optimal environmentally benign solvent-based adhesive products

The manufacture of improved adhesive products that meet specified target properties has attracted increasing interest over the last decades. In this work, a general systematic methodology for the design of optimal adhesive products with low environmental impact is presented. The proposed approach integrates computer-aided design tools and Generalised Disjunctive Programming (GDP), a logic-based framework, to formulate and solve the product design problem. Key design decisions in product design (i.e., how many components should be included in the final product, which active ingredients and solvent compounds should be used and in what proportions) are optimised simultaneously. This methodology is applied to the design of solvent-based acrylic adhesives, which are commonly used in construction. First, optimal product formulations are determined with the aim to minimize toxicity. This reveals that number of components in the product formulation does not correlate with performance and that high performance can be achieved by investigating different number of components as well as by optimising all ingredients simultaneously rather than sequentially. The relation between two competing objectives (product toxicity and concentration of the active ingredient) is then explored by obtaining a set of Pareto optimal solutions. This leads to significant trade-offs and large areas of discontinuity driven by discrete changes in the list of optimal ingredients in the product

Integration of fuzzy analytic hierarchy process into multi-objective computer aided molecular design

In this paper, a novel Computer Aided Molecular Design (CAMD) framework is developed to solve multi-objective molecular design problems. CAMD can be formulated as a multi-objective optimisation problem when there are multiple target properties to be optimised simultaneously. A major obstacle faced by multi-objective CAMD problems is the difficulty in assigning weighting factors to the target properties, since the relative importance of these factors is not always defined. It is particularly difficult to compare target properties which belong to different categories, such as physicochemical, safety, health and environmental properties, on a common scale. This paper presents a systematic CAMD algorithm built on Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) to deal with the ambiguity involved in evaluating the weights of target properties in multi-objective CAMD problem. Instead of using exact numerical values, FAHP approach expresses the pairwise comparison of target properties through triangular fuzzy numbers, which allow the degree of confidence of decision maker to be quantified. Hence, the proposed approach can address the uncertainties arising from ambiguity involved during value judgement elicitation in multi-objective CAMD problems. The solutions generated provide a better balance of performance for a set of identified target properties. The proposed methodology is illustrated through a case study on designing a better solvent for extracting residual oil from palm pressed fibre. © 2017 Elsevier Lt