Designing a hybrid first/second generation biofuel supply chain with reliable multimodal transport: a mathematical model

Biofuels production systems are identified as a potential solution in responding to the ever-increasing energy consumption demand. The complexity of conversion process and supply chain of these systems, however, can make the commercialization of biofuels less attractive, so designing and management of an efficient biofuel supply chain network can resolve this issue. Hence, this paper proposes a multi-period hybrid generation biomass-to-biofuel supply chain considering environmental, economic and technology considerations. The objective is to maximize the total profit that biofuel producers can make with practical constraints including the biomass supply, the capacity of facilities, storage, Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions and transportation with limited capacity. To highlight the applicability of the proposed model, it is applied to a biomass-derived liquid fuel supply system in the southern region of Iran. In the case study, wheat and wheat stem are simultaneously considered as the first- and second-generation of feedstocks for biodiesel production. Sensitivity analyses show that available biomasses can have a significant impact on the profitability of this supply chain. The obtained results demonstrate the efficiency and performance of the proposed model in biodiesel supply chain design.