Thermal runaways in exothermic batch reactions are a major economic, health and safety risk in industry. In literature most stability criteria for such behaviour are not reliable for nonlinear non-steady state systems. In this work, Lyapunov exponents are shown to predict the instability of highly nonlinear batch processes reliably and are hence incorporated in standard MPC schemes, leading to the intensification of such processes. The computational time is of major importance for systems controlled by MPC. The optimal tuning of the initial perturbation and the time frame reduces the computational time when embedded in MPC schemes for the control of complex batch reactions. The optimal tuning of the initial perturbation and time horizon, defining Lyapunov exponents, has not been carried out in literature so far and is here derived through sensitivity analyses. The computational time required for this control scheme is analysed for the intensification of complex reaction schemes. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.