Continuous stirred tank reactors: Easy to stabilise. (Q1413950)

A family of nonlinear output feedback control laws for non-isothermal continuous stirred tank reactors (delivering bounded control action and yielding asymptotic stability with an explicit estimate of the region of attraction) is derived. The basic assumption is: the concentrations of the components of the reaction mixture must reach their steady state values when the temperature is at its steady state value. It is argued that control laws for temperature stabilization require only partial state information. The capabilities to handle input constraints and model uncertainties are also discussed. The theoretical results are illustrated using a van der Vusse reaction mechanism.