Topological criterion to safely optimize hazardous chemical processes involving arbitrary kinetic schemes

Safe and productive operating conditions for complex exothermic chemical processes are difficult to obtain because of the strong interaction between selectivity and safety constraints. In this work a generalization of the topological criterion to nonautocatalytic, chain, and autocatalytic catalyzed reaction schemes is presented. Such a criterion, useful for isoperibolic semibatch processes, is able to detect the so-called QFS boundary by performing a topological analysis of a suitable reduced phase portrait of the system of ordinary differential equations describing the process. Moreover, a safe and general procedure aimed to obtain the optimum values of both the dosing time and the initial reactor/coolant temperature, based on such a criterion, has been proposed and validated through the use of literature experimental data and laboratory tests concerning the case studies analyzed.