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310623 Optimization of the Supply Chain Associated to the Production of Bioethanol From Residues of Agave in Mexico
In Mexico, one of the most important industries is the Tequila production; where the agave plant is used as source of fermentable sugars. During the processing of Agave to yield Tequila, several lignocellulosic residues from the Agave are produced; these residues correspond to the stalks that are obtained in the cultivation areas because these are not used in for the Tequila process, and also there are several lignocellulosic residues obtained in the factories associated to the Tequila processing from the pineapples after the fermentation process. Note that the Agave is mainly cultivated in the central-west part of Mexico (in the states of Jalisco, Guanajuato and Michoacán), and most of the factories associated to the Tequila are located also in this region. Furthermore, the residues that are distributed in this region represent a considerable pollution problem, and currently these are not used. However, these lignocellulosic residues can be used as raw material to produce several products, including bioethanol. In addition, the demand for the bioethanol is distributed though the nearby cities. Nowadays, satisfying the fuels requirements is a serious problem, due to the reduction of oil reserves around the world and the associated greenhouse gas emissions. Biofuels are expected to be able to attack the negative environmental impact for energy use, these biofuels are produced from biomass and organic wastes with high carbohydrate content, bioethanol is biofuels that can be used as substitution of gasoline. Therefore, to promote the sustainable use of this residue as raw material for the bioethanol production there is required to develop a systematic approach, which must consider the optimization for the entire supply chain accounting for several objectives. These objectives should include economic, environmental and social issues to promote sustainability (Santibañez-Aguilar et al., 2011). Therefore, in this work is proposed a mathematical programming model for the sustainable optimization for the supply chain management associated to the bioethanol production from the residues of the Agave from the Tequila production in Mexico. The optimization method is based on the superstructure shown in Figure 1; whereas the bioethanol production process is based on the flowsheet shown in Figure 2.
Figure 1. Superstructure for bagasse distribution.
Figure 2. Bioethanol process in central and distributed facilities.
The proposed model is based on the superstructure showed in Figure 1, and it consists of the following relationships:
- Agave available in the i growing areas at time t.
- Pineapples that are send to the tequila factories from the agave cultivation areas.
- Amount of agave in the cultivation areas.
- Amount of lignocellulosic materials in the distributed and central processing facilities for obtaining bioethanol.
- Amount of bioethanol obtained from the central and distributed process facilities.
- Objective function
The optimization model was coded in the software GAMS, where the solver CPLEX was used to solve different scenarios for the case study considered. The solution of the proposed optimization approach shows that with the current lignocellulose materials from the Agave only the 2% of the biogasoline demanded in Mexico can be obtained, and the marked satisfied corresponds to the regions near to the cultivation areas. In addition, the proposed approach can be used to determine the land cultivation required to satisfy a greater demand for the biogasoline of Mexico. Also, the proposed optimization approach allows obtaining solutions economically attractive for the use of this waste from the Tequila process; notice that currently this waste represents a serious problem.
References.
- Santibañez-Aguilar, J.E.; González-Campos, J.B.; Ponce-Ortega, J.M.: Serna-González, M.: El-Halwagi, M. M. Optimal planning of a biomass conversion system considering economic and environmental aspects. Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research, 2011, 50 (14), 8558-8570.