Optimal biorefinery planning considering simultaneously economic and environmental objectives

This paper presents a multiobjective mathematical programming formulation for the optimal planning of a biorefinery. The objective function considers simultaneously the maximization for the net profit and the minimization for the overall environmental impact. The model takes into account the optimal selection of different feedstocks, processing technologies and products; the economic objective function accounts for the availability of the bioresources, processing limits and demand of products in each specific region, as well as the costs for feedstocks, products and processing routes; while the environmental objective function accounts for the whole life cycle impact measured through the eco-indicator 99. A new methodology to identify the Pareto set of optimal solutions that simultaneously compensates both objectives is presented. A case of study to implement a biorefinery in Mexico is use to test the proposed methodology.