Brochure for Potential Students - École Polytechnique de Montréal

Biorefinery
The forest biorefinery has been defined as the “full
integration of the incoming biomass and other raw
materials, for the simultaneous production of fibers
for paper products, chemicals and energy”, and
offers potentially interesting technical and
economic opportunities for the forestry industry.
By integrating the forest biorefinery at existing
plants through the implementation of
thermochemical and biochemical processes, pulp
and paper mills have the opportunity to generate
significant quantities of green energy and
bio-products, and increase their revenues while
continuing to produce traditional wood, pulp and
paper products.
THE CHAIR TEAM
NSERC DESIGN ENGINEERING CHAIR
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT
ÉCOLE POLYTECHNIQUE DE MONTRÉAL
Paul Stuart, Eng., Ph.D.
Professor and Chairholder
Michel Perrier, Eng. Ph.D.
Professor
Bala Srinivasan, Eng., Ph.D.
Professor
Virginie Chambost, M.B.A.
Project Director
Matty Janssen, Ph.D.
Post-Doctoral Fellow
Agnès Dévarieux-Martin
Chair Coordinator
WANT TO JOIN THE CHAIR TEAM?
www.pulp-paper.ca
Identifying the Biorefinery
The NSERC Environmental Design Chair seeks to
identify and design promising forest biorefinery
concepts, considering the rapidly emerging body of
knowledge related to this area, and considering a
multi-dimensional set of criteria such as market/
commercial factors, social impacts, maturing
technologies, etc.
We will achieve this by developing a practical set of
product portfolio and process design
methodologies that consider sustainable
development, and are suitable for systematically
exploring biorefinery strategies for retrofit to pulp
and paper mills:
◊ that minimize risk,
◊ whose strategic implementation involves
existing mature supply chains, and
◊ that account for the forest industry culture and
other barriers to biorefinery implementation.
Interested in becoming a graduate
student in our Design Chair?
Do you enjoy process design? Do you want to
become an capable industry leader, focused on using
data for decision making in a multidisciplinary
context?
Please send an email to Professor Paul Stuart
(paul.stuart@polymtl.ca) introducing yourself, and
express in your email why you would like to join our
team. Please also send your university marks, and
your CV indicating your particular strengths relative to
our program. We hope that you have the passion and
interest for applying process integration tools in the
industry context, and join our team!

The Chair in brief
Mission
The overall objective of the Chair at École
Polytechnique is to develop a strong team in the
fundamentals of different PI techniques, and to
become the premier university research group in the
application of PI techniques to solve
multidisciplinary design problems that are unique to
the pulp and paper industry. More specifically, the
Chair seeks to achieve the following:
◊
◊
To develop techniques for turning data into
knowledge (i.e. fundamental and empirical
models) suitable for decision making, to address
specific challenges facing the pulp and paper
industry,
To use case studies as inspiration for enhancing
Chemical Engineering Design training, and
◊ To train graduate students in PI and
multidisciplinary design techniques, and in so
doing, train Canada’s future forest industry
leaders
Process Integration
Process Integration (PI) is the holistic analysis of
processes with the goal of improving their design
and performance (typically measured using
plant-wide key performance indices, or KPI). PI
emphasizes multidisciplinary decision making that
incorporates process, environmental and financial
criteria based on relational data. PI may be
considered as advanced process design, since its
methodologies relate to classical multidisciplinary
process design practice.
PI also is a set of advanced multidisciplinary design
tools for examining sustainability, e.g. plant-wide
design strategies are sought which can result in
improved process efficiencies, and thus reduced
environmental impact as well as good financial
returns. In its Design and Development Program, the
Ecole Polytechnique Design Chair applies a broad
range of PI methodologies to address industry design
problems using a sustainability approach.
Our PI tools include for example data processing and
reconciliation, process simulation, plant-wide
optimization, life cycle analysis, and supply chain
modeling. The application of PI tools is becoming
increasingly critical to the global competitive position of
the forestry and other industry sectors that are
commodity and capital intensive in nature. The Design
Chair derives its industry-driven Design and
Development program from the forestry sector.
.
Overall Design Framework
Some of Our Project Areas
Focused on Process Integration Tools
◊ On-Line Data Processing for Reliable Plant-Wide
Process Status, and Reconciling
Environmental, Process and Cost Data in
Mill-Wide Models
◊ Evaluating capital Spending Models
◊ Heat Exchange Networks - Balancing Energy
efficiency With Cogeneration
◊ Incorporating Multi-Criteria Decision-Making
(MCDM) Into the Design Process
◊ The Generic Supply Chain Model in the Pulp and
Paper Industry
◊ LCA: Environmental Performance Metrics Across
the Corporation
◊ Coupling LCA and Supply Chain Outcomes for
Decision-Making
Focused on Exploring the Biorefinery
◊ Technology Roadmap for Using Process
Integration Tools to Evaluate Implementation of
the Forest Biorefinery
◊ Strategic Planning for the Sustainable Biorefinery
◊ Exploring Strategic Pulp and Paper Industry
Business Options for new Business Model
Definition
◊ Optimizing Product Management in the Forest
Biorefinery
◊ Promising New Business Models for the Forest
Biorefinery
◊ Process Simulation and Energy Management for
Competitive Advantage for Biorefinery
Implementation