Determining the Optimum Reaction Pathway from a Reaction Pathway Search Space: a Review

Abstract

The feasibility of a chemical plant is heavily reliant on the reaction system and the subsequent downstream processing (DSP) techniques needed to achieve a marketable purity. However, with the ever-increasing number of reaction pathways being developed for a single product, it has become increasingly difficult to identify the optimum pathway for industrial scale up. Variations to a single reaction could involve changing the catalyst, operating conditions, residence times, and so forth. It is impractical to critically analyze each of these reactive systems, warranting techniques and frameworks that can be applied to reduce a reaction pathway search space to only those exhibiting feasibility. This article provides a basic review of previous work conducted in finding the optimal reaction pathway, highlighting the gap in the field that could be addressed in future research ventures.