Application of attainable region theory to batch reactors

•Continuous attainable region theory can be applied directly to batch reactors.•Fundamental reactor types are interpreted as a particular fed-batch reactor.•This helps to suggest a recommended sequencing policy in the batch.•Both batch and continuous reactors can be improved by a single AR construction.•CSTR solutions may be hard to obtain depending on reaction kinetics and stability.

The application of attainable regions (AR) to batch reactor configurations is presented. In this work, we consider the problem of constructing an equivalent batch structure given an AR generated for a continuous system from a specified feed composition and associated kinetics. The authors show that by the appropriate transformation, results developed from a continuous AR may be used to form a related batch structure, and thus improvement of batch reactor structures is also possible by use of the attainable region.