Model Identification and Control of A Semibatch Chemical Reactor

Two consecutive, irreversible chemical reactions are conducted in an isothermal, liquid-phase, semibatch chemical reactor. To drive the reactions forward, a strong base is added. Overaddition of base results in total loss of batch. A controller is desired for addition of base that will achieve high conversion in minimum time without overshooting the endpoint. The controller is derived as the solution of a nonlinear programming problem. To prevent overshoot despite model parameter uncertainty, the nonlinear program enforces constraints not only on the predicted states but on an estimate of state uncertainty at the final time.