Michael Baldea
Kenneth A. Kobe Professorship in Chemical Engineering
Energy Engineering
Process Engineering
Research in our group addresses theoretical challenges and problems of practical importance in the area of process and energy systems engineering. We rely on concepts from multiple fields – nonlinear systems, control, optimization and numerical methods – to develop new theory, algorithms and software tools. Our work follows three major thrusts: integrated decision-making in the chemical and energy supply chains, monitoring and optimizing process performance, and process integration and intensification. Important applications include i) integrating scheduling and control decisions (with a particular focus on chemical plants that interact with the electric grid and can provide ancillary services), ii) quantifying plant-model mismatch for model-based controllers, iii) process data visualization, iv) equation-oriented process simulation and optimization and, v) design and control of intensified processes such as dividing-wall columns and autothermal reactors. Our research has a strong translational component and we have implemented and validated several of our results on industrial test beds.
