Optimization of Biodiesel Supply Chain Produced from Waste Cooking Oil: A Case Study in China

Abstract

The Chinese program for biodiesel use highlights the production of biodiesel from waste cooking oil (WCO). This paper addresses the design of a WCO-for-biodiesel supply chain and develops advanced modeling framework to make decisions to location, production, inventory, and distribution in different settings. This paper prooses a four-stage model to optimizae the biodisel supply chain from both economic and environment objectives. The first one is to minimize the colleciton facility and biorefinery constrcting costs associated with storage and transportation to the crushing plant. The second is to minimize GHG emission wihin the whole process of WCO-biodisel. Then the analysis is appliied to a case study in Jiangsu of China where has realized application in WCO-biodisel and have a great demand for biodiesel. The case is modeled using a spatially explicit integrated supply chain model. The resource is spatially characterized using a Geographic Information System (GIS) model that integrates and expands several existing resource assessments. We do a sensitivity analysis by alter one input parameter value like kitchen waste supply, transportation cost and conversion rates to get the the change in the size and location of the collection facility and biorefinery. Our study provides a comprehensive mathematical model which effectively bring together specific application feature especially in WCO-biodisel supply chains.