Title: Soft sensor methodology for the precise spatial and temporal prediction of thermodynamic states inside chemical reactor

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Abstract

Inside a continuous chemical reactor, in which phase transitions occur during the reaction, thermodynamic conditions as well as compositions of the process stream are subject to significant spatial and temporal changes. Given that measured information about thermodynamic state variables is only available for the inlet and outlet stream of the reactor, it is currently not possible to determine a spatial distribution of thermodynamic states within the reactor on the basis of measured information via software sensors. As, in particular, exothermic chemical reactions often show temperature peaks which are likely to destroy catalysts and components or adversely affect their service life, this limited information about internal reactor states poses a considerable risk with regard to product quality and process reliability. Therefore, this paper proposes a novel approach in the area of sensor technology which is based on rigorous thermodynamic models and enables a more detailed prediction of the reaction progress in view of avoiding undesired temperature peaks, based on measured process parameters of the input and output streams only.