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Press release

4 November 2009

PSE awards 2009 Model-Based Innovation Prize

Winning Portuguese team models salt brine crystallisation spray system

Press materials

>PSE Model-Based Innovation (MBI) Prize

LONDON, 4 November 2009 --- Process Systems Enterprise (PSE), providers of the gPROMS advanced process modelling software and model-based engineering services, today announced that the winner of the prestigious PSE Model-Based Innovation Prize for 2009 is a team from the Instituto Superior Técnico of Lisbon, Portugal.

The winning team is Raquel Durana Moita, Prof. Henrique Matos, Prof. Cristina Fernandes, Prof. Clemente Pedro Nunes and Mario Jorge Pinho, for their paper “Dynamic modelling and simulation of a heated brine spray system”, published in Computers and Chemical Engineering in February 2009. The paper presents work on modelling of a heated brine spray system for salt recrystallisation ponds, which is integrated with a cogeneration system to increase the overall process efficiency.  The €5000 prize will be formally awarded at the AIChE Annual Meeting in Nashville, Tennessee.

Runners up were Fabrizio Bezzo, Federico Galvanin and Massimiliano Barolo of the University of Padova for their paper “Online Model-Based Redesign of Experiments for Parameter Estimation in Dynamic Systems” and Mladen Eic, Qinglin Huang and Amir Malekian, of the University of New Brunswick for a paper entitled “Optimization of PSA process for producing enriched hydrogen from plasma reactor gas”.

The judges summarised the winning paper as “excellent work presenting a detailed integrated dynamic model of a novel process that has been well-validated using industrial data. The developed model provides a good basis for optimisation of design and operation for similar industrial processes, and addresses energy efficiency issues.”

Raquel Durana Moita, speaking on behalf of the winning team, said “We are very pleased to have won the prize acknowledging the quality and innovative nature of our research and the challenging problems that we are addressing. Using advanced facilities of gPROMS such as stochastic simulation, we were able to create a random drop set to simulate the spray system. gPROMS also allowed us to investigate many different alternatives rapidly, perform a detailed sensitivity analysis of key model parameters, validate the model and analyse simulation results.”

PSE is a leader in the emerging field of Model-Based Innovation (MBI), in which detailed high-accuracy mathematical models of processes and products are used to accelerate innovation and reduce technology risk. MBI helps to integrate R&D activities with engineering design, resulting in optimised process design and operation and reduced costs.

gPROMS is the world’s leading modelling environment for such applications, and is widely used throughout the chemicals, energy, petrochemical, food and pharmaceuticals sectors, including some 200 academic organisations.

Mark Matzopoulos, Chief Operating Officer of PSE, says “As a company closely involved in research and innovation throughout the process industries, we are keen to recognise and foster the efforts of others who are doing the same. We congratulate the winners on the depth and quality of their work.”

Materials

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About PSE
About gPROMS

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"Raquel Durana Moita, Instituto Superior Técnico"

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Raquel Durana Moita
"Prof. Henrique A. Matos, Instituto Superior Técnico"

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Prof. Henrique A. Matos
"Prof. Cristina Fernandes, Instituto Superior Técnico"

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Prof. Cristina Fernandes
"Prof. Clemente Pedro Nunes, Instituto Superior Técnico"

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Prof. Clemente Pedro Nunes