Advanced process control and monitoring of a continuous flow micro-reactor

This paper presents a real-time advanced process control and monitoring scheme for a continuous flow micro-reactor producing an ether compound. A PLS calibration model is designed to predict the ether product yield using inline spectral data. This yield is then controlled to the desired setpoint by the proposed MPC scheme. Through real-time results, it is shown that the MPC controller is able to deliver accurate setpoint tracking even in the face of substantial plant-model mismatch caused by diluted catalyst. Furthermore, it is shown that the designed PCA monitor can effectively detect process/reaction faults, such as irregular reaction chemistry.