Multiobjective Optimization of Industrial Naphtha Cracker for Production of Ethylene and Propylene

Abstract

Naphtha pyrolysis is one of the important routes for simultaneous production of ethylene and propylene. With recent increase in demand of both ethylene and propylene, understanding of naphtha pyrolysis becomes important for producing with increasing yield of these valuable products. Simultaneous maximization of yield of these two products is mathematically formulated as a multiobjective optimization (MOO) problem. Improved selected scheme is incorporated in the existing multiobjective differential evolution (MODE) algorithm and a new evolutionary algorithm is proposed. Both the evolutionary algorithms [i.e., MODE III and MODE-III with improved selection scheme (MODE III-ISS)] are used for MOO of industrial naphtha cracker unit. Two objectives (maximization of ethylene yield and propylene yield) and decision variables [pressure of the reactor tube (P), temperature of the reactor (T), initial flow rate of naphtha (F ₀), and steam to naphtha ratio (SOR)] are considered for MOO study. MODE III and MODE III-ISS algorithms results are compared and presented, which clearly shows that the proposed MODE III-ISS algorithm possesses certain advantages over the MODE III algorithm (such as number of successful selections and percentage convergence with respect to initial number of population points, the quality of the obtained nondominated [ND] solutions).

Keywords:

• Differential evolution
• Evolutionary algorithms
• Mathematical models
• Multiobjective optimization
• Naphtha