On September 17, 2019, Prof.Lin Tao’s team published a paper entitled “Multi-objective optimizationfor sustainable renewable jet fuel production: A case study of corn stoverbased supply chain system in Midwestern U.S.” in the journal of Renewableand Sustainable Energy Reviews. This study developed a four-stagesupply chain optimization model, and evaluated three RJF pathways (ATJ, FT, andHTL) under optimal supply chain configurations. They drew a Pareto-optimalcurve, which showed the trade-off between production cost and greenhouse gasemissions, and suggested FT as the promising sustainable RJF pathway.

Sustainable development of biomass-based renewable jetfuel (RJF) production mitigates the environmental stress and improves ruraleconomics. Prof. LinTao’s team developed a mixed-integer linear programming model toincorporate spatial, agricultural, techno-economical, and environmental datafor multi-objective optimization of RJF supply chain systems. The model wasapplied to the Midwestern U.S. to evaluate the sustainability performance ofthree pathways including alcohol-to-jet (ATJ), Fischer-Tropsch (FT) and Hydrothermalliquefaction (HTL). The results showed that HTL is the most cost-effectivewhile FT is most environmental-friendly with low greenhouse gas (GHG)emissions. The cost-optimal analysis suggested a centralized supply chainconfiguration with large facilities, while the environmental optimizationanalysis preferred a distributed system with small biorefinery facilities. ForFT approach, cost optimization analysis suggested developing a supply chainwith one large biorefinery, whereas environmental optimization preferred asystem with 11 small biorefineries. Considering the carbon price of CO₂ reduction, FT yields the lowest cost among three pathways, but it is still 47%higher than that of fossil jet fuel. FT is not cost competitive with fossil jetfuel until the carbon price increases to $0.30 per kg of CO₂ reduction. FT was suggested a promising sustainable RJF production pathway dueto its relatively low capital investment and production costs, centralizedsupply chain configuration, and low GHG emissions.

The corresponding author of this paper was Prof. Lin Tao, in the college of Biosystems Engineering and Food Science in Zhejiang University. Huang Ento, an undergraduate student of 2014 class and PhD student Zhang Xiaolei were the co-first authors of this paper. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands participated in some relevant research work. This study was funded by the National Key Research and Development Program and Zhejiang University.