Chemical Engineering Research & Design, Vol.148, 321-335, 2019
Computing meaningful models of continuous data
Parameters controlling continuous chemical processes as well as all instruments found in such processes generate a huge amount of data. Calculating models to predict critical quality attributes (in y) from process data (in X) can be fastidious. Partial-Least-Squares (PLS) regression is now widely present in the industry for process analysis and modelling purposes. However, this methodology requires static data while the majority of chemical processes operate continuously. Some dynamic PLS variants have been developed, but they cannot associate specific critical process parameters with meaningful process dynamics. This work presents a novel Dynamic-PLS variant developed to resolve these issues. Using one real dataset and artificial cases, the performances of this novel methodology is compared to standard regression methodologies. It is demonstrated that the proposed methodology calculates the most robust models in validation. With the real dataset, it is also demonstrated that the predictive model calculated from the proposed methodology can easily be interpreted, leading to better process understanding. (C) 2019 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.