Fuzzy Optimal Design Model for Polygeneration Plant with Biochar Production for Carbon Sequestration

An efficient way for producing power, heat, and cooling while reducing CO2 emissions is through trigeneration. The emitted CO2 from trigeneration plant can be further reduced by producing biochar, which contributes negative carbon footprint to the system through sequestration of biomass carbon as char. This requires a gasification process to be added in the trigeneration system to produce biochar and syngas. The already complex nature of the trigeneration plant together with the added gasification process chain makes the capacity design of each of the components more challenging. In this study, a methodology for the optimal design of a polygeneration plant is shown using fuzzy optimization approach. The results of a case study show how the optimized capacities of each component are determined. The negative carbon footprint effect of the biochar production is observed in the case study results.