In a chemical process, the transformation of raw materials into desired chemical products usually cannot be achieved in a single step. Instead, the overall transformation is broken down into a number of steps that provide intermediate transformations. These are carried out through reaction, separation, mixing, heating, cooling, pressure change, particle size reduction or enlargement for solids. Once individual steps have been selected, they must be interconnected to carry out the overall transformation. Thus, the synthesis of a chemical process involves two broad activities. First, individual transformation steps are selected. Second, these individual transformations are interconnected to form a complete process that achieves the required overall transformation. A flowsheet or process flow diagram is a diagrammatic representation of the process steps with their interconnections.

The main purpose is developing superstructure representations at various levels of abstraction (aggregated to detailed), model the corresponding optimization problems, and develop effective solution techniques and strategies for these problems. Areas of application include synthesis of energy systems, integrated process water systems, complex distillation systems, process flowsheets and metabolic networks.