As critical net-zero targets remain top of mind for today’s chemical and energy companies, technologies like solvent-based carbon capture can be deployed to reduce carbon emissions and advance sustainability goals.

Reducing energy use and GHG emissions remains a priority for the process industries. However, when designing more energy efficient plants or revamping existing sites, a high level of expertise is required to perform Pinch analysis. Engineers have limited time available for design, and the use of separate tools by multiple disciplines also brings the risk of errors due to manual data transfer.

Leveraging process modeling tools is vital for accelerating the journey to market for new products, or for optimizing the margins of existing processes.

Learn how modeling crystallization processes in Aspen Plus® enables your organization to quickly deliver solids without the need for tedious trial-and-error experimentation.

Accurately modeling the solids section of a process is critical to product quality. Commonly, the solid and fluid sections of a process are modeled separately, making troubleshooting and optimizing inefficient and time-consuming. Additionally, solids are described by distributed properties rather than concentrated properties, which adds an extra level of complexity. These difficulties often lead to neglected or over-simplified solids modeling.

Leading chemical companies across the globe face more competitive pressures with volatile market conditions and a rapidly changing workforce pushing the demand for increased sustainability and profitability. Digital twin software offers new levels of operational excellence through enterprise-wide insights that drive improved business operations.

The concept of digital twins has been around since 1960s, but the term was first introduced nearly a decade ago by NASA's John Vickers. Until very recently, adoption of digital twins has been fairly inconsistent but acceptance looks to be accelerating with recent market shifts. Today’s users are seeing exponential benefits by deploying multiple digital twins across sites. The next wave of digitalization innovations, powered by digital twins and AI, is creating new levels of agility and flexibility, paving the way to autonomous operations.

While biotherapeutics is one of the fastest growing sectors in life sciences today, the tech transfer process still takes many years. Regulatory approval can be time consuming—from conducting clinical trials to achieving a validated process design.

As the chemical industry moves to renewable feedstocks as part of a circular economy, the design of biorefineries remains a challenge. The processes to recover streams and create high-value products are inefficient and wasteful. That’s where today’s process simulation software helps, as proven by the consortium BioSPRINT, which used Aspen Plus® to improve the purification and conversion of hemicellulose streams to produce an alternative to fossil-based polymers.

Recently AspenTech and the ARC Advisory Group conducted a study on the circular economy among industrial manufacturers. Early results indicate that complex supply chains and proven technologies are the most significant barriers to achieving circular economy goals with 75% of respondents believing digital capabilities are essential.