(388f) ChemSep, COCO and Formula Based Unit Operation Tools

ChemSep is a simulation tool for modeling distillation, absorption, and extraction operations. It has been available for academic use from the CACHE corporation for more than 15 years. ChemSep can ? via the use of CAPE-OPEN ? be inserted as unit operation in all mainstream steady state process simulators. One particular simulator excels in the versatility and reliability of its CAPE-OPEN implementation and therefore warrants special attention: COCO, the CAPE-OPEN to CAPE-OPEN simulator. In addition to CAPE-OPEN support as provided by other simulators, this simulator provides CAPE-OPEN access to energy and information streams, enabling heat integration and custom controlling. More-over, it allows for inserting unit operation models based on Excel, Scilab or Matlab models. In doing so, the way is paved for quickly implementing unit operation types for which no standard implementations are available, simply by entering the model equations.

We will demonstrate how to quickly combine ChemSep, standard unit operations and particular custom models, specifically for a membrane separation, into a complete process model.

Due to the facilities for formula based custom unit operation models, the Chemsep / COCO combination lends itself very well for chemical engineering courses. Text book examples for specific unit operations can be tested in the environment of an entire process model.

For more advanced engineering courses, custom thermodynamic routines can be implemented in a CAPE-OPEN context without the need for implementation of a complete thermodynamic server. COCO's thermodynamic server TEA allows for inclusion of custom property calculation routines via CAPE-OPEN. The resulting thermodynamic system can be employed inside COCO, or any other CAPE-OPEN compliant simulation environment.