Two general approaches are adopted in solving dynamic optimization problems in chemical processes, namely, the analytical and numerical methods. The numerical method, which is based on heuristic algorithms, has been widely used. An approach that combines differential evolution (DE) algorithm and control vector parameterization (CVP) is proposed in this paper. In the proposed CVP, control variables are approximated with polynomials based on state variables and time in the entire time interval. Region reduction strategy is used in DE to reduce the width of the search region, which improves the computing efficiency. The results of the case studies demonstrate the feasibility and efficiency of the proposed methods.