Process Engineering: Process Design, Control, and Optimization

A special issue of Processes (ISSN 2227-9717). This special issue belongs to the section "Process Control and Monitoring".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 January 2026 | Viewed by 368

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Chemical and Environmental Engineering Department, Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo León, San Nicolas de los Garza 66455, Nuevo León, Mexico
Interests: process modeling and simulation; process dynamics and control; process optimization; advanced process control; sustainable distillation systems; industrial process applications

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Process engineering stands as a cornerstone of modern industry, driving innovation and efficiency across a vast spectrum of sectors, from the chemical and petrochemical to pharmaceutical, food, and environmental industries. The continuous evolution of global challenges, including resource scarcity, environmental sustainability, and the demand for higher product quality and lower operational costs, places ever-increasing emphasis on advanced methodologies in process design, control, and optimization. These three pillars are intrinsically linked, forming a synergistic framework essential in developing, operating, and improving industrial processes. Effective process design lays the foundation for sustainable and economically viable operations, integrating fundamental principles with cutting-edge technological advancements. Consequently, robust process control strategies are crucial for maintaining desired operating conditions, ensuring safety, quality, and stability in dynamic environments. Finally, process optimization provides the tools to maximize performance, minimize resource consumption, and enhance profitability throughout the entire life cycle of a process.

This Special Issue, titled “Process Engineering: Process Design, Control, and Optimization” seeks high-quality works focusing on novel theoretical developments, computational methods, and practical applications in these critical areas. We invite contributions that advance the state of the art in designing new processes, enhancing the operability and safety of existing ones, and optimizing their performance under various constraints. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Advanced process synthesis and design methodologies for novel and sustainable processes;
  • Development and application of process modeling and simulation tools (e.g., steady state, dynamic, multi-scale) for chemical, biochemical, and physical processes;
  • Innovative control strategies for complex process systems, including model predictive control, adaptive control, and robust control;
  • Data-driven approaches for process monitoring, fault detection, and diagnosis;
  • Optimization techniques for process operations, scheduling, and planning (e.g., mixed-integer programming, global optimization, heuristic methods);
  • Integration of process design, control, and optimization for enhanced process performance and safety;
  • Application of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and deep learning in process engineering for design, control, and optimization;
  • Techno-economic analysis, life cycle assessment, and sustainability assessment of process systems;
  • Process intensification and modular design for improved efficiency and reduced environmental impact;
  • Optimization of supply chains and value chains in chemical and process industries.

Prof. Dr. Salvador Tututi-Avila
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Processes is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • process design
  • process control
  • process optimization
  • modeling and simulation
  • process systems engineering
  • sustainable processes
  • chemical engineering
  • industrial processes
  • advanced control
  • artificial intelligence

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

16 pages, 2980 KB  
Article
Multi-Objective Optimization of ETBE Intensified Processes Considering Economic, Environmental, and Inherent Safety Aspects
by Gabriel Hernández-Morales, Edgar Daniel Montaño-Olvera, Manuel Gómez-Ochoa and Arturo Jiménez-Gutiérrez
Processes 2025, 13(11), 3539; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr13113539 - 4 Nov 2025
Viewed by 5
Abstract
Process intensification has gained significant importance during the last few years because of its potential to develop innovative structures with improved energy efficiency and better economics. One approach that has been developed in this field is the transformation of a process flowsheet with [...] Read more.
Process intensification has gained significant importance during the last few years because of its potential to develop innovative structures with improved energy efficiency and better economics. One approach that has been developed in this field is the transformation of a process flowsheet with a series of conventional units into another one with minimal pieces of equipment. In this work we consider a base process to produce ethyl tert-butyl ether, which consists of a reactor and an isobaric distillation sequence. Given a set of design options provided by the gradual intensification of any processes that contain a dividing wall, reactive distillation, or reactive dividing wall columns, we take those intensified structures and make them subject to a multi-objective optimization task. The formulation consists of the minimization of the combination of economic, environmental, and inherent safety components. Different policies are simulated through weights assigned to each of those components. It is shown that the optimal structure depends on the priorities given to each term of the multi-objective formulation, and that the application of the optimization procedure further improves the economic and environmental potential provided by the base, fully intensified process, with reductions of up to 27.9 and 6.2 percent in those metrics. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Process Engineering: Process Design, Control, and Optimization)
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