Electrification of Process Industries through Economically Optimal Process Designs for Work-Heat Integration

Abstract

Almost 80% of the energy consumed by chemical industries is thermal energy generated using fossil fuels. The contribution of the process industries to global greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced by substituting part of the thermal energy with electrical energy.

The electrification of the process industry can be achieved by several means, such as using electrochemical methods for synthesis of chemicals, and through efficient design of heat pump assisted distillation processes and sub-ambient processes.

This talk presents a systematic process design strategy which combines pinch technology with optimization for economically optimal design of work-heat integrated processes such as vapour recompression distillation and natural gas liquefaction.

Bio

Shankar Narasimhan is currently Emeritus Professor (Hon.) in the Department of Chemical Engineering at IIT Madras. He was the M.S. Ananth Institute Chair Professor for ten years prior to his retirement from the same department.

He obtained his Bachelor’s degree from IIT Madras in 1982 and his MS and PhD degrees from Northwestern University, Illinois, USA in 1984 and 1987, respectively.

Shankar Narasimhan’s major research contributions are in the areas of Data Analytics, Process Design and Optimization, Fault Detection and Diagnosis, and System Identification.

Shankar Narasimhan has been a visiting professor at the Centre for Automatic Control in Nancy, France, Purdue University, Clarkson University and Texas Tech University in USA, and the University of Alberta in Canada.

He has also spent summer internships at Engineers India Ltd., R&D Centre in Gurgaon, Honeywell Technology Solutions Ltd., R&D Centre at Bangalore, and ABB Global Services Ltd., Bangalore as part of high-level industry-academia interactions.

Along with Prof. Raghunathan Rengaswamy of IIT Madras, he co-founded Gyan Data Pvt. Ltd. in 2011, which specializes in using data analytics, AI and ML for manufacturing excellence.

He also co-founded GITAA Pvt. Ltd. in 2018, which offers training in advanced data analytics, AI & ML.

Shankar Narasimhan was elected as a Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering in 2012.