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PrOMMiS WORKSHOP

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Workshop Description

Process Optimization & Modeling for Minerals Sustainability (PrOMMiS) is an open-source modeling toolkit that builds upon the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)-National Energy Technology Lab (NETL)’s IDAES platform. Initiated in 2023, the multi-institutional collaboration integrates advanced system modeling and optimization tools to help industry decisionmakers evaluate the environmental and economic performance of novel critical minerals and materials (CMM) extraction and purification technologies. PrOMMiS tools are designed to accelerate and de-risk the development, scale-up, and deployment of domestic CMM processing systems.

Core capabilities of the PrOMMiS toolkit include:

  • Conceptual design & process selection: screening of process configurations and superstructures to identify the most viable extraction pathways.
  • Digital twins & dynamic modeling: real-time simulations to optimize active CMM processing flowsheet operations.
  • Surrogate modeling: data-driven models when predictive thermodynamic data is unavailable.
  • Risk mitigation: uncertainty quantification and robust optimization to ensure process designs tolerate natural feedstock variations while reducing the need for expensive physical experiments.

These tools aim to reduce the timeline from "discovery to deployment" of CMM technologies, which can support secure sustainable domestic CMM supply chains, boost U.S. economic competitiveness, and promote environmental responsibility.

This 4-hour workshop will provide participants with the fundamentals of building and optimizing flowsheets in PrOMMiS and introduce advanced concepts. The agenda includes interactive sessions with direct support from members of the PrOMMiS modeling team.

Agenda Highlights

Hand-on keyboard activities – please bring your computer – to include:

  • Building your first PrOMMiS flowsheet
  • Real-time coding and flowsheeting with the experts

Advanced topics:

  • Robust Optimization - PyROs
  • Sequential Design of Experiments – Pyomo.DOE
  • Superstructure Optimization – PyoSyn & GDPOpt
  • PrOMMiS Dynamics & Digital Twins
  • Leverage AI for Flowsheeting & Visualization

Presenters

Headshot of Professor Alex Dowling

Professor Alex Dowling

Notre Dame University

Headshot of Professor Carl Laird

Professor Carl Laird

Carnegie Mellon University

Headshot of PhD. John Siirola

PhD. John Siirola

Sandia National Lab

Headshot of Professor Victor Zavala

Professor Victor Zavala

University of Wisconsin

Learning Objectives:

  • Navigate the PrOMMiS user interface and command-line tools to locate standard critical mineral processing components.
  • Identify key modeling libraries tailored for processing of CMMs, including rare earth elements (REEs).
  • Build a process flowsheet from scratch by connecting unit operation models (e.g., extraction, leaching, precipitation).
  • Configure feedstock properties and boundary conditions to accurately represent industrial problems.
  • Troubleshoot common initialization errors to achieve a successfully converged steady-state simulation.
  • Formulate optimization problems by defining clear objective functions, decision variables, and process constraints.
  • Execute optimization routines within PrOMMiS to maximize product yield or minimize environmental and economic costs.
  • Analyze optimization outputs to evaluate how feedstock variations impact the efficiency of the designed processing system.
  • Understand available PrOMMiS coding and visualization tools