Sustainable Design of an Optimal Supply Chain for Furfural Production from Agricultural Wastes

Abstract

Biochemicals produced from lignocellulosic residues appear to be a feasible solution to replace traditional fossil resources. However, their implementation must overcome some challenges such as biomass seasonality; feedstock selection; harvest selection; potential geographical biorefineries location; and numerous economic, environmental, and social restrictions. This work proposes a multiperiod supply chain model for the use of agricultural wastes toward the production of platform biochemicals, such as furfural. The most abundant of Mexico’s lignocellulosic residues are considered. The demand of furfural was chosen so that it can replace the feedstocks required to produce the terephthalic acid imported to Mexico. Economic, environmental, and social objectives were considered to evaluate the supply chain solution. The economic aspect consists of the maximization of net profit. The environmental impact is the minimization of eco-indicator 99, and the social objective is the maximization of jobs generated. The results show that furfural production for replacing current raw materials in Mexico is feasible. The supply chain solution with the best trade-off consists of a profit of 1 billion USD/year, 19 000 jobs generated/year, and 370 million eco-points/year. Finally, the supply chain model proposed a distributed furfural production scheme, where several small furfural plants are installed and distributed over all of the country.