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CBE Seminar Series: Ana Ines Torres Rippa

October 8 @ 4:00 PM 5:00 PM

Ana Ines Torres Rippa
Chemical Engineering
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA

Process Systems Engineering for Decarbonization of the Chemical Industry

This talk will cover recent contributions from my research group to the production of green hydrogen and the decarbonization of oil refinery operations.

The first part of the talk focuses on green hydrogen, a zero-carbon fuel for fuel cell electric vehicles and a key feedstock to many chemical industries. Green hydrogen is, by definition, produced by electrolysis of water using renewable-energy-powered electrolyzers. The design of green hydrogen production systems is challenging due to the intermittent nature of modern renewable energy sources like wind or sun. I will discuss optimization-based tools my group has proposed to find the optimal selection of the power source, electrolyzer technology, and energy storage device for a given energy availability pattern and hydrogen demand. The case studies include Uruguay and Chile, two South American countries that are projected to be leaders of the future green hydrogen economy.

The second part of the talk will discuss a decision-making tool my group is developing to assist oil refineries in their transition to decarbonization. Most oil refineries have set ambitious decarbonization goals, and several decarbonization options are becoming available. However, phasing out valuable assets before the end of their life for possibly not-yet-mature technologies is neither economical nor sustainable. We have proposed a retrofit optimization problem to identify the most cost-effective strategy (i.e., which technology is chosen and when it is deployed) to decarbonize an oil refinery. During the talk, we will present the results under different assumptions for electricity costs, carbon tax scenarios, and refinery configurations.

1415 Engineering Drive
Madison, WI 53706 United States