Fuzzy Wuzzy Was a Bear: Fuzzy Logic and Hydrodesulfurization

From King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals comes an article titled “Transparent predictive modelling of catalytic hydrodesulfurization using an interval type-2 fuzzy logic.”

It describes a method using machine learning to explore catalytic hydrodesulfuration.

TIP: Google® “Transparent predictive modelling of catalytic hydrodesulfurization using an interval type-2 fuzzy logic.”

You will find two sources for the full text of this article. One you will you have to pay for. The other is free, if you take the time to register with researchgate.net (https://www.researchgate.net/).

Here is the abstract of the article …

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Journal of Cleaner Production
Available online 22 May 2019
Transparent predictive modelling of catalytic hydrodesulfurization using an interval type-2 fuzzy logic
Hamdi A. Al-Jamimi a, Tawfik A. Saleh b
a Information and Computer Science Department, King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, Dhahran, 31261, Saudi Arabia
b Chemistry Department, King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, Dhahran, 31261, Saudi Arabia
Highlights
• Model for desulfurization using interval type-2 fuzzy logic approach is developed.
• Proposed system uses interval type-2 fuzzy in premises and consequences of rules.
• Mamdani based interval T2FL toolbox is developed.
• The interval T2FL system shows robust performance against the uncertainties.
• Constructed model prediction accuracy was validated using real experimental data.
Abstract
Optimizing the desulfurization process in reactors would assist in predicting the performance of catalysts, and in turn, the final sulfur concentration in fuel. Machine learning (ML) techniques have proven their predictive capacity in solving challenging problems in the petroleum industry. Several ML-based sulfur predictors have been designed to predict the sulfur concentration in fuel products. The capability to handle the impression and uncertainty present in the real-world environment has made fuzzy logic (FL) one of the most commonly utilized soft computing paradigms in modeling. This paper proposes an interval type-2 fuzzy logic model to optimize the use of catalysts for hydrodesulfurization (HDS) in an oil refinery for cleaner production. Such optimization assists decision makers in identifying the precise required conditions such as temperature, pressure and the amount of catalyst required to avoid unexpected redesulfurization. The catalyst was synthesized from AlMoCo modified with boron, phosphorus or bismuth. A series of hydrodesulfurization was performed using these catalysts under various conditions. The collected data were used to build and test the model. The results showed a promising prediction performance in terms of average absolute relative error (AARE = 0.0647) and the squared correlation coefficient (R2=0.995). Further experimental validation done on unexplored parameter settings demonstrates that the predicted values obtained from the proposed model corresponds closely with the follow-up experimental results where an average absolute difference of less than 4 ppm was recorded. This proves the capacity of the interval type-2 FL model in handling uncertainty, which holds great promise for cleaner production of oil. The reported model prove to be good for prediction of catalysts performance in a single unit, however, it cannot be used for catalysts in dual units.
Keywords
Chemical engineering; Catalysts optimization; Environmental sustainability; Modeling; Type-2 fuzzy logic; Desulfurization
source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652619317585
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TIP: Google® hydrodesulfurization king fahd to find other interesting articles in the same vein.

Here are some results from the search …

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Synthesis of a Ti-SBA-15-NiMo Hydrodesulfurization Catalyst: The ...
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acs.iecr.7b00719
by SA Ganiyu - ‎2017 - ‎Cited by 7 - ‎Related articles
Apr 23, 2017 - Refining and Petrochemicals, King Fahd University of Petroleum and ... catalysts are necessary for ultradeep hydrodesulfurization (UD-.

US Patent Application for HYDRODESULFURIZATION CATALYST ...
https://patents.justia.com/patent/20180100107
Apr 12, 2018 - A single-pot method of producing a hydrodesulfurization catalyst by ... Latest King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals Patents: SENSOR ...

Study on Hydrodesulfurization of a Mixture of Middle Distillates ...
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13369-017-3005-1
by MF Abid - ‎2018 - ‎Related articles
Dec 20, 2017 - This study aimed to investigate the feasibility of hydrodesulfurization (HDS) of a mixture ... King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals 2017 ...

Study on Hydrodesulfurization of a Mixture of Middle ... - Springer
https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs13369-017-3005-1.pdf
Dec 20, 2017 - King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals 2017. Abstract. This study aimed to investigate the feasibility of hydrodesulfurization (HDS) of a ...

Thermodynamic Aspects of Hydrodesulfurization and ...
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10916460500526973
by SA Ali - ‎2007 - ‎Cited by 8 - ‎Related articles
Center for Refining and Petrochemicals, The Research Institute, King Fahd ... Keywords: hydrodenitrogenation, hydrodesulfurization, hydrotreating reactions, re-.

Thermodynamic Aspects of Hydrodesulfurization and ... - ResearchGate
https://www.researchgate.net/.../233474165_Thermodynamic_Aspects_of_Hydrodesulfu...
Syed Ali at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals ... a comprehensive review of the thermodynamics of hydrodesulfurization and hydrodenitrogenation, ...

Factors influencing the performance of naphtha hydro-desulfurization ...
https://www.researchgate.net/.../241068171_Factors_influencing_the_performance_of_...
Apr 25, 2019 - Syed Ali at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals ... performance of the two CoMo catalysts was evaluated for hydrodesulfurization of ...

Performance evaluation of HDS catalysts by ... - ScienceDirect.com
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/001623619500076H/pdf?md5...
by JA Anabtawi - ‎1995 - ‎Cited by 12 - ‎Related articles
Petroleum and Gas Technology Division, The Research institute, King Fahd ... results of pilot plant evaluation of two commercial hydrodesulfurization (HDS).

Synthesis, application and kinetic modeling of CeO x –Si–CoMo ...
https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlehtml/2019/re/c8re00330k
by A Tanimu - ‎2019 - ‎Cited by 2 - ‎Related articles
Jan 24, 2019 - ^aDepartment of Chemistry, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, ... The ultradeep hydrodesulfurization (HDS) of fuel with a highly ...

Development of hydrodesulfurization catalyst using comparative ...
https://research.tue.nl/.../development-of-hydrodesulfurization-catalyst-using-comparativ...
by H Nakamura - ‎2008 - ‎Cited by 2 - ‎Related articles
Development of hydrodesulfurization catalyst using comparative model feed reactions and ... Publisher, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals.
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And finally, as a reward for having the patience to browse to the bottom of this post, here is a parting tip …

TIP: Create a Google® Scholar email alert for “king fahd university”

Because King Fahd University is focused on petroleum, any published research from that institution will be worth at least a glance.

Staying Trendy: Honeywell UOP

Keeping up with trends is always tricky.

Honeywell UOP offers a Trends page on its Web site (https://www.uop.com/trends/). On my last visit to the page, the list included …

• Natural gas
• Diesel
• Integration
• Feedstock options
• ROI – Return on Investment

TIP #1: Bookmark the UOP Trends Web page (https://www.uop.com/trends/) and visit it once in a while. It is an easy way to stay on top of developments in the refining industry.

TIP #2: Google® UOP and one of the broad topic areas listed above. For example, when you Google® UOP integration, one of the results is …

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Cover Story: Catalysing refining-petrochemical integration - PEOPLE ...
https://www.refiningandpetrochemicalsme.com/article-18338-cover-story-catalysing-r...
Cached
Feb 7, 2018 - In the near future, all refineries will get integrated with petrochemical ... Honeywell UOP also has many natural gas processing capabilities in its ...
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Here are excerpts from the article …

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[EXCERPTS]
Refining & Petrochemicals
Arabian oil and gas
PEOPLE
Cover Story: Catalysing refining-petrochemical integration
In the near future, all refineries will get integrated with petrochemical complexes, and all downstream facilities will become digitally connected, envisages Rebecca Liebert, president and CEO, Honeywell UOP, in an interview given to Martin Menachery.
by Martin Menachery
07 Feb 2018
Rebecca Liebert, president and CEO, Honeywell UOP.
In the near future, all refineries will get integrated with petrochemical complexes, and all downstream facilities will become digitally connected, envisages Rebecca Liebert, president and CEO, Honeywell UOP, in an interview given to Martin Menachery.
Honeywell UOP is an innovator and enabler in the catalytic processing of hydrocarbons. The company has the widest offering of licensed technologies for the refining and petrochemicals manufacturing industry. Its core offerings are for the refineries, integrated with petrochemical complexes in many cases, and aromatics and propane dehydrogenation (PDH) units.
Honeywell UOP also has many natural gas processing capabilities in its portfolio of core competencies. In the Middle East, it offers many integrated natural gas processing technologies, which have the capability to remove all the contaminants like sulphur, water, mercury, etc. The company’s technologies also facilitate recovery of natural gas liquids.
“We focus on fully integrated solutions for the downstream industry. We demonstrate our core capabilities through our innovative solutions for the customers. Everything we do is to help our customers make more money – at the end of the day, it is all about better yields, lower CAPEX and OPEX, enhanced energy efficiency, etc.,” says Rebecca Liebert, president and CEO, Honeywell UOP.
Driving continuing success
In terms of introducing new technologies, Honeywell UOP has been very active in the past few years. For example, it recently unveiled the energy efficient Light Desorbent Parex process which is the most efficient way to recover high purity para-xylene from mixed C8 aromatics isomers. This process offers lower CAPEX and OPEX, and better energy intensity than any other process available in the market.
“On top of this, we launched our next-generation Oleflex capability, and continue to drive innovation in this process. The Oleflex process converts propane to propylene and isobutane to isobutylene using catalytic dehydrogenation. Compared with competing processes, Oleflex technology provides the smallest environmental footprint, the lowest cash cost of production and the highest return on investment,” observes Liebert.
“Then, we introduced ionic liquids alkylation technology. We call it ISOALKY which is the first successful liquid alkylation technology to be introduced in 75 years. While traditional technologies use hydrofluoric or sulphuric acid as a liquid alkylation catalyst, the new technology uses a non-aqueous liquid salt, or ionic liquid, at temperatures below 100ºC to convert a typical stream from a fluid catalytic cracker into a valuable high-octane blending component that lowers the environmental impact of motor gasoline. So, this is a greener technology,” Liebert explains.
Catalyst is the key
“You may have a good process technology; but, if you do not have a good catalyst to go with it, you will not maximise the yield through that process technology. Honeywell UOP looks at this as a hand-in-glove situation. First, you have to develop a strong process technology and then you have to develop a stronger catalyst to go with that. Every time we innovate the process, we also innovate the catalyst,” comments Liebert.
“Sometimes we actually innovate the catalyst even before we innovate the process because we find ways to make the catalyst better, more active, and drive higher yield. We are very focussed on how we evolve those catalysts. I think catalysts are very important to our industry because those allow greater output without a big CAPEX investment and the returns to the customers are huge. So, we focus on innovating catalysts all the time,” Liebert explains.
The Connected Plant concept
Honeywell Connected Plant connects processes, assets and people. It helps the company’s customers drive differential optimisation and reliability in their processes. The fundamental process involved in it is called Connected Performance Services, which is founded on Honeywell UOP’s core process technologies.
“In addition to Honeywell UOP’s process models, we have overlaid the decades of experience of our service people. If a service person encounters a problem in a process plant, what decisions will he or she make? How will he or she react? We have coded all these into the software of Honeywell Connected Plant. So, it can help our customers detect a problem before it happens. This drives better output, improved yields, higher reliability, and more money to our customers,” observes Liebert.
 “Our R&D collaborations are put in place to develop new products. By working with King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Saudi Arabia, we are really able to understand the local requirements for catalysts and then work to develop optimised catalysts for Saudi Aramco plants. On top of that, we use this relationship to help develop local talent in the region and it is a huge base of very smart people to localise the talent from an R&D perspective,” Liebert remarks.
“We think of R&D in two ways. First, we do fundamental research on new zeolites, innovative catalyst technologies, out-of-the-box routes to new process technologies, and state-of-the-art equipment. Then, we spend lot of money on development, taking the results of the fundamental research to the market place, or evolving our  current technologies.”
Empowering refining-petrochemical integration
“The future of downstream industry is definitely in the direction of integration of refineries to petrochemical plants. We are right now the leader in driving the innovative solutions for this integration. We want to continue performing this role very actively.”
“Five years from now, I foresee the Middle East refining and petrochemicals manufacturing industry being more powerful than ever. It has a very innovative culture focussed on the future. And, I foresee the future being all refineries getting integrated with petrochemical complexes, and all refineries being digitally connected as well as ensuring that their workforce is the most talented and trained in the world,” observes Liebert.
source: https://www.refiningandpetrochemicalsme.com/article-18338-cover-story-catalysing-refining-petrochemical-integration
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Pipe Dreams: AI and Pipe Routing

AI-Artificial Intelligence is everywhere … even in pipe routing. A recent article illustrates that fact. Excerpts appear below.

TIP: Find additional articles on the same topic by Googling pipe routing multi agent path finding
One result …

Multi-Agent Path Finding - Sven Koenig
idm-lab.org/slides/mapf-tutorial.pdf
Feb 7, 2017 - Task: find collision-free paths for the agents from their start to their goal .... Rapid random restarts help to solve more multi-agent path find

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Position Paper: From Multi-Agent Pathfinding to Pipe Routing
Gleb Belov,1 Liron Cohen,2 Maria Garcia de la Banda,1 Daniel Harabor,1 Sven Koenig, 2 XinruiWei 1
1 Monash University, Australia
2 University of Southern California 44fgleb.belov, daniel.haraborg@monash.edu, skoenig@usc.edu
Abstract
The 2D Multi-Agent Path Finding (MAPF) problem aims at finding collision-free paths for a number of agents, from a set of start locations to a set of goal positions in a known 2D environment. MAPF has been studied in theoretical computer science, robotics, and artificial intelligence over several decades, due to its importance for robot navigation. It is currently experiencing significant scientific progress due to its relevance in automated warehousing (such as those operated by Amazon) and in other contemporary application areas. In this paper, we demonstrate that many recently developed MAPF algorithms apply more broadly than currently believed in the MAPF research community. In particular, we describe the 3D Pipe Routing (PR) problem, which aims at placing collision-free pipes from given start locations to given goal locations in a known 3D environment. The MAPF and PR problems are similar: a solution to a MAPF instance is a set of blocked cells in x-y-t space, while a solution to the corresponding PR instance is a set of blocked cells in x-y-z space. We show how to use this similarity to apply several recently developed MAPF algorithms to the PR problem, and discuss their performance on abstract PR instances. We also discuss further research necessary to tackle real-world piperouting instances of interest to industry today. This opens up a new direction of industrial relevance for the MAPF research community.
Introduction
The 3D Pipe Routing (PR) problem is a common industrial problem that appears when designing the layout of industrial plants, such as oil refineries, natural gas processing stations, water treatment facilities, and the type of power plants used in ships and submarines. Designing the layout of such a plant requires finding 3D location coordinates for every piece of equipment in the plant (equipment allocation problem), and finding a 3D route for every pipe that connects two pieces of equipment (PR problem). The aim is to minimize the total cost of the plant (which can run into multi-billion dollar budgets), while ensuring safety and correct functionality. Figure 1 shows a layout for part of a natural gas plant. Differences in the quality of the final layout, can have a very significant impact on the cost of these plants, including the cost of the pipes and associated support structures, which are known to take the largest share: up to 80% of the purchased equipment cost or 20% of the fixed-capital investment (Peters and Timmerhaus, 2004). However, finding high-quality plant layouts is remarkably difficult due to the size of these plants and the complexity of the associated constraints. As a result, layouts are still designed manually, taking multiple engineers many months (or even years) to complete. This process is inefficient, costly and the results may vary in quality, since they largely depend on the experience of the piping and layout engineers. Current research into automatic plant layout commonly divides it into two phases. The first phase performs equipment allocation, that is, finds 3D positions for all equipment that minimise a total cost and satisfy all equipment constraints, such as min/max distances and maintenance access requirements. In this phase the cost of the pipes is approximated using rough measures, such as Manhattan distances. The second phase solves the PR problem, that is, finds 3D routes for all pipes connecting the (already allocated) equipment, that minimize the pipe costs (based on their length) and satisfy all pipe constraints, such as no two pipe routes collide and they are all appropriately supported. In such setting, the start and end position of each pipe is given as input (referred to as nozzles), representing the pipe’s connection to its source/target equipment.
The PR problem is similar to the 2D Multi-Agent Path Finding (MAPF) problem, which searches for collisionfree paths for several agents from given start locations to given goal locations in a known 2D environment. Thus, a solution to a MAPF instance is a set of blocked cells in x-yt space, while a solution to the corresponding PR instance is the corresponding set of blocked cells in x-y-z space. In this paper, we show how to use this similarity to apply several recently developed optimal and bounded-suboptimal MAPF algorithms to the PR problem. We also discuss the performance of some of these algorithms on different sets of PR instances. Finally, we discuss further research necessary to tackle real-world pipe-routing instances of interest to industry today. This opens up a new direction of industrial relevance for the MAPF research community.
Conclusion
In this paper we have shown that the 3D Pipe Routing (PR) problem, which aims at placing collision-free pipes from given start locations to given goal locations in a known 3D environment, is similar to the 2D MAPF problem. This is important because it indicates that many recently developed MAPF algorithms apply more broadly than currently believed in the MAPF research community. To demonstrate this, we have evaluated the success rate, solution quality and efficiency of three MAPF algorithms (CBS, ECBS(1.01) and ECBS(1.05)) in several different environments. Results show that MAPF algorithms are able to find solutions for large instances with optimal or near optimal quality. This provides strong incentives to the MAPF research community to perform the further research necessary to tackle realworld pipe-routing instances of interest to industry today.
Free full text source: https://arxiv.org/abs/1905.08412
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