A Synthesis of Optimization Approaches for LCA-Integrated Industrial Process Modeling: Application to Potable Water Production Plants

Abstract

This paper synthesizes the authors’ experience in the area of integrated approaches coupling multi-objective optimization (MOO), industrial process modeling and simulation, and life cycle assessment (LCA), with particular application to the sector of drinking water production. An industrial process is intended as any process using a certain technology to produce a product or deliver a service. The paper discusses comparatively the suitability for the optimization of a real-world drinking water production plant (DWPP) of four optimization approaches, namely: (1) off-the-shelf global search metaheuristic algorithms, (2) hybrid optimizers combining global search and local search, (3) surrogate model based optimizers, and (4) local search.