Development of a fuzzy analytical network process to evaluate alternatives on vitamin B12 adsorption from wastewater

•A feedback network was established to evaluate VB12 adsorption from wastewater.•The fuzzy ANP was proposed to select VB12 recycling alternatives.•Activated C with KOH as activation media was the optimal alternative.•Sensitivity analysis confirmed the robustness of alternative ranking.

The use of adsorption methods to recover vitamin B12 (VB12) from wastewater has been increasingly studied. However, there is a lack of knowledge on optimization of the methods. This study established a feedback network to evaluate alternatives regarding VB12 adsorption from wastewater. The network comprises environmental, economic and technological criteria and their feedbacks. Based on the network, the fuzzy matter-element theory was integrated with an analytical network process to rank the alternatives. Among five alternatives, activated carbon with KOH as activation media was suggested to be the optimal alternative for VB12 recycling from wastewater, while mesoporous activated carbon fibre was the least preferred alternative. Particularly, the adsorption technology reusing biomass ranked second to the optimal alternative, and has great application potential due to low costs and biological waste reuse. Sensitivity analysis does show that the ranking of alternatives was robust and was not subject to the change in weight.

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