Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
4959318 | European Journal of Operational Research | 2018 | 44 Pages |
Abstract
Biorefineries can provide a product portfolio from renewable biomass similar to that of crude oil refineries. To operate biorefineries of any kind, however, the availability of biomass inputs is crucial and must be considered during planning. Here, we develop a planning approach that uses Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to account for spatially scattered biomass when optimizing a biorefinery's location, capacity, and configuration. To deal with the challenges of a non-smooth objective function arising from the geographic data, higher dimensionality, and strict constraints, the planning problem is repeatedly decomposed by nesting an exact nonlinear program (NLP) inside an evolutionary strategy (ES) heuristic, which handles the spatial data from the GIS. We demonstrate the functionality of the algorithm and show how including spatial data improves the planning process by optimizing a synthesis gas biorefinery using this new planning approach.
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Physical Sciences and Engineering
Computer Science
Computer Science (General)
Authors
Tim Schröder, Lars-Peter Lauven, Jutta Geldermann,