Biorefinery decision making

The software is developed with Java and employs ontologies and GAMS optimization models. It is used for decision-making for the Biorefinery field based on economic and environmental criteria. The ontology deployed is consisted of four classes and their respective individuals: (i) feedstock: including corn stover, wood chips, plant oil, municipal solid waste, poplar hardwood, birch hardwood, wheat straw, rice straw, (ii) technologies: including biochemical, thermochemical and conventional processes (i.g. fermentations, gasifications, transesterifications, reforming, dehydration), (iii) intermediate and final chemicals such as ethanol, syngas, biogas, methanol, glycerol, propylene, biodiesel, ethylene, ammonia, butanol, acetone, propylene glycol, polyamides, polyester, hydrogel, xylitol, carbon black, pyrolysis oil and more. Based on the user input the ontology extracts the necessary data and develops a ready-to-execute GAMS model on the background. The framework provides to the users the options of inserting their problems input (available knowledge, scenarios, constraints etc), like the feedstock they want to compare that lead to their desired products. The software returns the optimal path according to user input. The framework, additionally provides the user with the following: (i) the available selection criteria (profit, cost, environmental, energy scenarios), (ii) the visualization of the superstructure based on the selected chemicals/technologies , (iii) results of the optimization produced by the models, either visual or data-type, (iv) various resources from heterogeneous sources. (pdf, excel files, flowsheeting models).