Adaptation of TRIZ contradiction matrix for solving problems in process engineering

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Highlights

  • Systematic generation of new solutions in process industries.

  • TRIZ contradiction matrix for chemical engineering.

  • New 14 characteristics and 8 inventive principles.

Abstract

TRIZ has been successfully applied in several domains such as aeronautics, car industry, and electronics. However, its popularity among chemical engineers is rather limited (Robles et al., 2009. Chem. Eng. Process.: Process Intensif. 48 (1), 239). The motivation for this paper is facilitation of TRIZ use in chemical process industries (CPI). In the actual form, the most popular TRIZ tool—contradiction matrix, seems to be too abstract for use by the chemical engineers. Therefore an attempt is made to tune the contradiction matrix to the problems most often encountered in process engineering. This article proposes new characteristics and inventive principles for TRIZ contradiction matrix in order to expand its applicability to typical problems encountered in CPI.

There are proposed fourteen new characteristics and eight inventive principles obtained as a result of analysis of papers, published in Science Direct database in years 2004–2014, and dealing with chemical process industries and mixing operation in particular.

Introduction

In the recent years, chemical process industry (CPI) is experiencing a growing pressure to develop new processes or to modify the existing ones. The major challenges are related to the issues of economic, environmental and social sustainability. They are manifested by the need to limit the emissions, reduce water and energy use, ensure the safe operation of the plants, reduce operational cost, use low grade raw materials, etc. The additional problem is a need to face these challenges in a much shorter time than previously due to fast changing market conditions. These new circumstances require introduction of new methods and tools for generation of the technological and organizational solutions enabling facing of these complex situation. The use of methods for systematic enhancement of creativity seems to be an answer to those complex problems.

Creativity is defined as “a cognitive process leading to the generation of solutions which are new, unexpected and useful”. It can be enhanced by the method usually classified as intuitive and analytical ones. Intuitive methods use emotion, fantasy or other source of inspiration. The analytical methods are structured and aimed at reaching the solution by a systematic search of the solution space (Proctor, 2014, Srinivasan and Kraslawski, 2006, Pokhrel, 2013).

The methods for creativity enhancement used in chemical industries are presented in Table 1. Some of them are used in CPI more often then others, e.g. brainstorming. However, others are not applied at all e.g. synectics. The popularity of the method is due to its applicability to technical problems, flexibility of use as well as the experience of the team facing a given challenge.

TRIZ is the most structured method for creativity enhancement used in chemical process industries. Its logical, formal structure covering the different aspects of technical systems design contributes to popularity of this method among engineers. The additional advantage is its universality. However, TRIZ popularity among chemical engineers is rather limited (Robles et al., 2009, Fresner et al., 2010). One of the cause seems to be a difficulty in the use of contradiction matrix, one of the most popular TRIZ tools.

Therefore this paper introduces new characteristics to be use in TRIZ contradiction matrix in order to enhance the application of TRIZ in chemical process industries. The proposed new characteristics should facilitate the adaptation of the general solutions, obtained from contradiction matrix, to the specific problems analyzed by chemical engineers. The proposed new characteristics are obtained when analyzing the problems occurring in design and operation of common unit operations used in chemical process industries as well as specific problem situations e.g. troubleshooting, process intensification or debottlenecking.

The article is divided into five chapters. The second chapter gives an overview of TRIZ and its tools, with special focus on the contradiction matrix and its characteristics.

The next chapter presents the applications of TRIZ in chemical process industries. In the fourth chapter, the new characteristics of contradiction matrix are introduced and two examples of their application are presented. Finally, the last chapter summarize this paper.

Section snippets

Basics of TRIZ

TRIZ was developed on the basis of analysis of patents and discovering the evolution trends of a technical systems (Ilevbare et al., 2013, Kim et al., 2009). It has been conceptually developed to deal mainly with technical problems. However, TRIZ has been used also to solve non-technical problems, e.g. management, business, finance, marketing (Nadhmi and Azizah, 2014a, Nadhmi and Azizah, 2014b, Nadhmi and Azizah, 2015). The TRIZ problem solving process is based on different fundamental

Methodology

In this paper the unit operations, commonly used in chemical process industries (CPI), were investigated. There are four types of unit operations: based on fluid mechanics, mass transfer, heat transfer and mechanical principles, Fig. 1.

The search in the database (Science Direct, 2015) for the period 2004–2014 allowed to identify the unit operations most commonly used in CPI. They were chosen for identification of the problems most frequently occurring in industrial practice. The common problems

Summary

The use of TRIZ-based systematic innovation provides many benefits e.g.: structuring and organizing creative phases of the innovation process in a systematic way; quick access to the accumulated experience of inventors as well as specially organized databases of scientific and technological knowledge. The application of methods for systematic generation of new solutions is of great interest in chemical process industries. However, the use of inappropriate methods and tools could result in

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