Structural approach to the control of a reaction system using thermodynamics-based extent model

This work proposes a novel control strategy to stabilize the decoupled dynamics of a homogeneous reaction system, described by vessel extents, using irreversible thermodynamics. Specifically, the non-negative property of the irreversible entropy production due to reaction allows expressing the reaction rate in terms of a thermodynamic quantity, called chemical affinity, that can then be defined in the space of vessel extents using a linear time-invariant transformation. This structural link in turn allows constructing a Lypunov function candidate to synthesize a nonlinear controller for the stabilization of the reaction rate, and thus of the vessel extents. Numerical simulations are carried out for a reversible reaction to illustrate the proposed approach.