Multi-criteria decision analysis of succinic acid production using hesitant fuzzy analytical hierarchy process

The selection of a large-scale succinic acid (SA) production process usually considers issues related to technology, economics, and the environment by performing techno-economic analysis (TEA) and life cycle assessment (LCA). This work improves such a decision-making process by additionally applying the hesitant fuzzy analytical hi-erarchy process (HFAHP) as a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) method considering expert's opinions in linguistic fuzzy terms. The production route is chosen from four alternatives. The first alternative (AL-1) utilizes both C-6 and C-5 sugar of corn stover for SA and lignin for electricity production. Alternative 2 produced SA, furfural, and electricity from C-6, C-5, and lignin respectively, whilst alternative 3 considered SA production from C-6 sugar and biogas from C-5 sugar for electricity production along with lignin. Alternative 4 produced SA using a fossil-based route. The HFAHP includes a hierarchical decision model consisting of an upper layer with two main criteria and a lower layer with four and three sub-criteria related to the main criteria techno-economics and the environment, respectively. Based on the preferences given by experts for the main criteria, sub-criteria and alternatives, the results indicated a higher weightage of the techno-economic criterion (55.0%) than the environmental criterion (45.0%). Waste (ST-2) and damage to resources (SE-3) were identified as the most influential sub-criteria with an assigned weightage of 32.0% and 34.0%, respectively. Least weightage (12.0%) was assigned to feedstock input (ST-3). An equal weightage (33.0%) was assigned to damages to human health (SE-1) and damages to the ecosystem (SE-2). AL-1 was found to be the best alternative with 35.0% weightage, followed by AL-3 (24.0%), AL-2 (22.0%), and AL-4 (19.0%). The sensitivity analysis demonstrated that AL-1 remains the best alternative and least sensitive in the range of 0.10-1.00 fraction variations of the main criteria weightage.