Preface to PSE-2012 Special Issue

The International Symposia on Process Systems Engineer-ing (PSE) have been a triennial tradition since 1982. The

series was arranged by the International Organization forProcess Systems Engineering with representation from the AsiaPacific Confederation of Chemical Engineering, the EuropeanFederation of Chemical Engineering, and the Inter-AmericanConfederation of Chemical Engineering. It has proved to be anattractive global platform for the PSE academics, researchers,and practitioners from all corners of the world for sharingadvances in PSE education, research, and application. PSE-2012, the 11th in the series, was held in the global village ofSingapore during July 15−19, 2012.While the PSE community continues its focus on under-

standing, synthesizing, modeling, designing, simulating, analyz-ing, diagnosing, operating, controlling, managing, and optimiz-ing a host of chemical and related industries using the systemsapproach, the boundaries of PSE research have expandedconsiderably over the years. The changes and challengesbrought about by the increasing globalization and commonglobal issues of water, energy, sustainability, and environmentprovided the motivation for the theme of PSE-2012: ProcessSystems Engineering and Decision Support for the Flat World.PSE-2012 involved nearly 340 contributions on modeling,

simulation, design, optimization, operations, control, water,energy, environment, sustainability, biosystems, oil and gas,pharmaceuticals, education, industrial applications, and others.Short versions of these papers have been published in theProceedings of PSE-2012.1 We invited extended versions ofsome papers that reflected key developments related to water,process/product design, sustainability, and process operationsand optimization. These appear in this special issue, after theusual stringent review process of I&ECR.

■ WATER

Chen and co-workers (DOI: 10.1021/ie302521v) present amixed integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) model tosynthesize water networks that involve batch and semi-continuous units and operate cyclically. Majozi and Gololo(DOI: 10.1021/ie302498j) present a technique to optimize thepressure drop in cooling water systems containing multiplecooling towers. Shuhaimi and co-workers (DOI: 10.1021/ie302427v) present a model of water polygeneration systemthat can be used to simultaneously minimize freshwaterconsumption and wastewater generation.

■ PROCESS AND PRODUCT DESIGN

de Medeiros and co-workers (DOI: 10.1021/ie302507n)develop a simulation model for upgrading natural gas foroffshore applications using gas−liquid hollow fiber contactorsvia aqueous alkanolamines. Eden and co-workers (DOI:10.1021/ie302516v) report a new methodology that designsmolecular structures with desired target properties. Gangulyand co-workers (DOI: 10.1021/ie303007n) optimize aphosphoric acid fuel cell (PAFC) stack, using a reduced-ordermodel. Lee and co-workers (DOI: 10.1021/ie302404g) find an

analytical solution to the optimal capacity of a batch-storagenetwork that suffers from sporadic shutdown of its units. Lutzeand co-workers (DOI: 10.1021/ie302513y) address processintegration at the phenomenon level and generate flowsheetoptions, using a decomposition-based solution approach.Marmolejo and Gundersen (DOI: 10.1021/ie302541e) pro-pose a new graphical representation of exergy particularly suitedfor the design of low-temperature processes. Rong and co-workers (DOI: 10.1021/ie302495w) study the synthesis of aprocess for recovering artemisinin, which is obtained fromplants and used as a drug for several diseases, including malaria.

■ SUSTAINABILITY

Bezzo and co-workers (DOI: 10.1021/ie302442j) highlight theimportance of water and carbon footprints in the strategicdesign of biorefineries, using a multiobjective formalism.Cresmaschi and co-workers (DOI: 10.1021/ie302478d) usecomputational fluid dynamics (CFD) to simulate a flooded bedalgae bioreactor and use an ANN surrogate model to maximizealgae production. Floquet and co-workers (DOI: 10.1021/ie302490y) assess the sustainability of an integrated high-temperature steam electrolysis process that converts biomass toliquid fuel. Tan and co-workers (DOI: 10.1021/ie302485y)present a targeting concept for heat-integrated resourceconservation networks. Tan and co-workers (DOI: 10.1021/ie302481h) extend the well-known pinch analysis technique tomatch carbon dioxide sources and storage sites in the context ofcarbon capture and storage. Kravanja and co-workers (DOI:10.1021/ie302599c) propose a method to reduce the manyenvironmental footprints to a minimum in the multiobjectiveoptimization of biomass-based energy systems.

■ PROCESS OPERATIONS AND OPTIMIZATION

Xi and co-workers (DOI: 10.1021/ie302488v) propose anequation-oriented approach that optimizes a high-densitypolyethylene (HDPE) slurry process for a target molecularweight distribution. Moon and co-workers (DOI: 10.1021/ie302509q) analyze flow patterns in a cyclone using computa-tional particle fluid dynamics to understand deposit formationin a residue fluidized catalytic cracking process. Muller and co-workers (DOI: 10.1021/ie302487m) experimentally evaluatethe operating conditions for a three-phase separation unit in aprocess for hydroformylation of long-chain alkenes. Shin andco-workers (DOI: 10.1021/ie302511d) analyze the explosionrisks of mixtures of alternative clean fuels. Yoon and co-workers(DOI: 10.1021/ie3025104) propose a methodology for the safelayout of chemical processes based on an index thatincorporates the risk to humans.

Special Issue: PSE-2012

Received: April 16, 2013Accepted: April 17, 2013Published: June 5, 2013

Editorial

pubs.acs.org/IECR

© 2013 American Chemical Society 7045 dx.doi.org/10.1021/ie401214d | Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2013, 52, 7045−7046

I. A. KarimiDepartment of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering,National University of Singapore, Singapore (E-mail:cheiak@nus.edu.sg)Rajagopalan SrinivasanDepartment of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering,National University of Singapore, Singapore (E-mail:chergs@nus.edu.sg)

■ AUTHOR INFORMATIONNotesViews expressed here are those of the authors and notnecessarily the views of the ACS.The authors declare no competing financial interest.

■ ACKNOWLEDGMENTSWe would like to thank the PSE-2012 IPC members for theirtimely reviews and the anonymous reviewers of this specialissue.

■ REFERENCES(1) Karimi, I. A., Srinivasan, R., Eds. Computer-Aided ChemicalEngineering, Vol. 31A-B; Elsevier: Amsterdam, 2012.

Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research Editorial

dx.doi.org/10.1021/ie401214d | Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2013, 52, 7045−70467046