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

Sustainable development of biomass-based renewable jet fuel (RJF) production mitigates the environmental stress and improves rural economics. Prof. Lin Tao’s team developed a mixed-integer linear programming model to incorporate spatial, agricultural, techno-economical, and environmental data for multi-objective optimization of RJF supply chain systems. The model was applied to the Midwestern U.S. to evaluate the sustainability performance of three pathways including alcohol-to-jet (ATJ), Fischer-Tropsch (FT) and Hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL). The results showed that HTL is the most cost-effective while FT is most environmental-friendly with low greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The cost-optimal analysis suggested a centralized supply chain configuration with large facilities, while the environmental optimization analysis preferred a distributed system with small biorefinery facilities. For FT approach, cost optimization analysis suggested developing a supply chain with one large biorefinery, whereas environmental optimization preferred a system 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 jet fuel until the carbon price increases to $0.30 per kg of CO₂ reduction. FT was suggested a promising sustainable RJF production pathway due to its relatively low capital investment and production costs, centralized supply 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.