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Chemistry is present in each of our daily activities, as well as each and every one of the objects that surround us.

Chemistry is a science that helps to feed, to clothe, heal our illnesses, to build our homes, to protect from inclement weather, to travel great distances, and is present in the products we consume for our entertainment.

Continuous distillation processes are frequently characterized by uncertainties of their inflow. These may relate to the flow rate, to the composition of the mixture to be separated or to its temperature. Typically, the uncertainties are not completely irregular but follow a certain pattern caused by the operation of upstream units. Then it makes sense to model uncertainty as a stochastic parameter, the distribution of which can be estimated from history but the realization of which in the coming period of optimization is unknown. In the following, we are going to consider the rate of inflow as the only random parameter. As a consequence of possible unpredictable peaks, the inflow cannot be processed immediately but has to be stored in a feed tank before being directed at a controlled rate to the distillation unit (see [9], Figure 1). For technological reasons, one has to impose upper and lower level constraints for the feed tank preventing it from running full or empty. Both cases would require unpleasant compensating actions which are desirable to avoid (see [9], Section 1.3). Therefore, a problem will be formulated which reflects the objective to find a feed control being robust with respect to level constraints yet optimal in the sense of minimum energy consumption subject to product specifications.

The object of this research was to study quantitatively possibilities of a continuous process of production of perchloric acid from nitrogen peroxide and ammonium perchlorate. Perchloric acid has many properties which make it an important acid in industrial and analytical work and its use would be much greater if its cost of production could be lowered. It is a strong monobasic acid, stable in solutions (up to 60%), has a high boiling point. There are relatively few insoluble salts (potassium, rubidium, caesium, and thallium perchlorates are only highly soluble) and the difference in solubilities of potassium and sodium perchlorates give an easy method of separation of these two metals in analytical work.