Destruction of volatile organic compounds by the optimal multivariable control of a catalytic reverse flow reactor

"Destruction of volatile organic compounds by the optimal multivariable control of a catalytic reverse flow reactor", Summary This paper aims to compare 2 optimal control laws for a catalytic reverse flow reactor (RFR), which topic has not often been tackled. The RFR aims to destruct volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which are noxious products and are the source of a lot of problems: pollution, acid rains, woods wasting, green house effect and health hazards. Due to the public regulations, the VOCs discharge in the atmosphere becomes therefore more and more limited. The RFR is characterized by a periodic cycle of treatment of the VOC flow, allowing trapping the heat of reaction inside the core of the RFR. This allows using the RFR in an autothermal mode. The control problem tackled here is to maintain the RFR is this mode, such that the RFR extinction is avoided, and such that the catalyst elements are not destroyed. Effects of the influencing stochastic variations of the inlet pollutant concentration (the input disturbance) have to be accounted for by the optimal constrained tuning of the dilution rate and the internal electric heating. Optimal closed-loop performances of a linear quadratic regulator (LQR) and a model predictive controller (MPC) are compared through simulations.