Special Issue on “Design and Control of Sustainable Processes”

Sustainability has been one of the key drivers for technological innovation in this century [...]

nonlinearities of power-electronic system. The control strategy is shown to provide robustness against system uncertainties and rapid response to deloading process and thereby enhancing the FRT capability.
In the context of emission and effluent management, Chen et al. [6] focus on the water pollution evaluation problem. The paper aims at effective coordination of multiple evaluation methods to obtain a consensus decision to aid policy makers. Specifically, the paper develops a hybrid ensemble learning evaluation method by combining Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution (TOPSIS), Grey Relational Analysis (GRA), Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), and Takagi-Sugeno (TS) fuzzy neural network. This study illustrates the usefulness of multi-Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) approach in combination with ensemble vote as an effective tool for evaluation of water quality in the context of water pollution. Zhang and Liu [7] focus on wastewater treatment. Specifically, the optimal control of wastewater treatment plants to improve effluent quality and reduce operating cost is pursued within the framework of economic model predictive control (MPC). To mitigate challenges posed by large computational requirements of economic MPC, reduced order model-based controllers are designed. Two model reduction techniques are presented and the corresponding performance is compared through simulations. Last, Oncioiu et al. [8] focus on environmental sustainability. Specifically, the work facilitates implementation of green business process management in the mining industry. Ultimately it will assist managers to identify new opportunities to improve performance by optimizing green business processes. This work underscores the importance of green business process management to reduce cost of depollution and performance improvement.
In the context of process integration, Jogwar et al. [9] focus on scheduling aspects of energy-integrated batch process systems. The paper shows that energy integration constraints result in repeating patterns in the optimal schedules. Using these patterns, the scheduling problem can be very efficiently solved for longer/shorter horizons. Furthermore it highlights interesting relationships between scheduling horizon and intermediate inventory or equipment utilization. From an operational perspective, it demonstrates that such a pattern-based method can be integrated with conventional mixed integer optimization to achieve order of magnitude reduction in solution time.
In the context of carbon capture, Fu et al. [10] focuses on the effect of urbanization on carbon capture. Specifically, it investigates the spatiotemporal dynamics of carbon storage and analyzes the impact of urbanization on carbon storage in a specific region of China. Based on this, key contributors for carbon stock losses as well as factors to increase carbon storage are identified. This study aids in the development of sustainable urbanization.
In the context of improving performance of conventional energy production systems, Li and Wang [11] focus on performance assessment of coal fired boiler using actual operational data. Specifically, key variables affecting performance of the boiler combustion control system are identified and using Principal Component Analysis (PCA), their respective contribution rates are obtained. Ultimately this information is consolidated into a performance assessment index. The article provides reliable and rapid performance assessment method and describes suggestions to improve performance of the boiler combustion process. While the previous paper dealt with thermal control system, the second paper by Li and Wang [12] deals with the power generation system of a thermal power plant. The paper develops a control-relevant model for power control system (PCS). Three control architectures based on traditional PI control, internal model control (IMC), and feed forward (FF) control elements are developed and their dynamic performance is compared in detail. Through simulations, it is shown that a combination of IMC with PI control mode gives better and robust performance compared to traditional PI plus FF control strategy.
Overall, this special issue contributes towards key sustainability drivers such as renewable energy production, emission and effluent management, carbon capture, and process integration towards the realization of sustainable development goals. From systems engineering perspective, this issue contributes towards design, modeling, simulation, dynamics, scheduling, control, monitoring, and performance assessment of sustainable processes.
We would like to thank all the authors for contributing to this special issue, the Processes editorial team for technical support and Prof Michael A Henson, Editor-in-Chief for providing us the opportunity to organize this special issue.

Sujit Jogwar Xiaonan Wang Guest Editors
Funding: There is no funding support.

Conflicts of Interest:
The authors declare no conflict of interest.