Industrial filtration technologies selection for contamination control in natural gas processing plants: A sustainability and maintainability-based decision support system under q-rung orthopair fuzzy set

Abstract

The challenges of sustainability and maintainability to implement the industrial filtration technologies in the natural gas industry necessitate a systematic and practical assessment. With the target of balance between the issues in the context of sustainability and maintainability policies, criteria (principles) including economic, environmental, social, and maintainability aspects are taken into consideration. This work aims at developing a novel hybrid decision support system (DSS) namely q-rung orthorpair fuzzy set-based MAIRCA (Multi-Attributive Ideal-Real Comparative Analysis). The proposed DSS is applied to prioritize industrial filtration technologies considering the sustainability and maintainability principles. These technologies are considered for controlling contaminants produced by the natural gas industry in Iran. The prioritization of the considered technologies is obtained from the most to least preferred as: Cyclo-filter, Cyclone separator, Backwash, Gravity separator, and Basket strainer, respectively. The Cyclo-filter technology is selected as the preferable alternative. The adaptability of this technology with the regional and local states of the study area has assisted to make it the most suitable technology. The decision-making framework can help to give a new and practical insight for the policymaking in the field of process energy and environmental systems especially in the natural gas industry to control contamination.