MORL-CA: Dynamic Multi-Objective Reinforcement Learning for Chlor-Alkali Process Optimization Under Time-Varying Conditions

MORL-CA: Dynamic Multi-Objective Reinforcement Learning for Chlor-Alkali Process Optimization Under Time-Varying Conditions

Derun Gan, Renhao Yin, Guangzhi Qu, Feng Zhang

Proceedings of the Thirty-Fifth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence
AI4Tech: AI Enabling Technologies. Pages 6436-6444. https://doi.org/10.24963/ijcai.2026/716

Chlor-alkali production is a large-scale industrial process whose operating conditions and equipment states evolve over time. Its process optimization requires ongoing trade-offs among conflicting objectives such as product yield, energy consumption, and equipment life. Existing optimization approaches are typically static and must be re-optimized after environmental changes, limiting their real-world applicability. In this work, we model the problem as a dynamic multi-objective sequential decision-making problem that continuously tracks a time-varying Pareto set under changing conditions. We propose MORL-CA, a multi-objective reinforcement learning framework that integrates offline pretraining on historical data with constrained online policy refinement. MORL-CA introduces a state-aware adaptive objective weighting mechanism within a multi-critic actor-critic architecture, enabling localized Pareto-improving policy updates while satisfying operational and safety constraints. Extensive experiments in an environment conducted from real chlor-alkali data demonstrate that MORL-CA achieves superior Pareto solution quality and smoother adaptation to dynamics compared with state-of-the-art multi-objective optimizers and MORL baselines.
Keywords:
Domain-specific AI4Tech: AI4Manufacturing
Domain-specific AI4Tech: Other AI4Tech applications