1. Entropy generation and optimization

1.1 Economic and thermodynamic optimization

In process science, the term optimization generally covers an economic concept in which the objective function, the quantity to be minimized, is a monetary cost combining operating costs and amortized investment costs. Understood in this way, optimization requires, if not mastery, then at least reasonable and up-to-date information on the prices of energy, materials, services and equipment, on the lifespan of the latter, on the cost of money, on currency exchange rates - all relative and cyclical quantities . The choice or improvement of a technology is then subject to the vagaries and fluctuations of the economic climate. In contrast to this approach, but by no means in contradiction with it, we could aspire to an approach...