Automated Process Synthesis Using Reinforcement Learning

A novel method for automated flowsheet synthesis based on reinforcement learning (RL) is presented. Using the interaction with a process simulator as the learning environment, an agent is trained to solve the task of synthesizing process flowsheets without any heuristics or prior knowledge. The developed RL method models the task as a competitive two-player game that the agent plays against itself during training. The concept is proven to work along an example with a quaternary mixture that is processed using a reactor or distillation units.