Behnam Hosseinzadeh - Process Simulation and Control Research Lab., Department of Chemical Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology (IUST), Narmak
Mohammad Sadeghi - Process Simulation and Control Research Lab., Department of Chemical Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology (IUST), Narmak

In this paper Genetic Algorithm was employed as a powerful method for optimization of an industrial ammonia synthesis reactor. The reactor consists of four adiabatic catalytic fixed beds equipped with three quench flows and an internal heat exchanger on its top. The optimization problems were defined based on plant data obtained from an operational ammonia reactor at Khorasan petrochemical complex, Bojnurd-Iran. An optimum ratio of H2/N2 was obtained from numerical solution of the problem in which Micro Genetic Algorithm was employed. However, Simple Genetic Algorithm was used to find the quench flow rates configuration. The results for mathematical model show that the estimated optimum condition can improve the overall product yield by 4.5%.

Optimization, Modeling, Genetic Algorithm, Ammonia Synthesis Reactor