Multi‐criteria assessment of yellow, green, and woody biomasses: pre‐screening of potential biomasses as feedstocks for biorefineries

Abstract The need for sustainable production of food, feed, and fuel for a growing global population with minimum pressure on land use and other ecological impacts is a major challenge. The aim of the current study is to pre‐screen available biomass types to prepare for a system‐wide sustainability assessment in related biorefinery value chains. The study describes the use of multiple‐criteria decision‐making techniques as tools for assessing criteria and to draw preferences among the alternatives. Thirteen biomass types (classified as yellow, green, and woody) are evaluated with respect to 15 criteria. The criteria are classified under the three assessment parameters: supply potential, biomass properties, and potential environmental gain/losses. Pair‐wise comparisons of the alternatives are carried out in an outranking method ( PROMETHEE ) on the basis of their ratings (on a 1–5 scale) and weights assigned to the criteria. Weighting factors of the criteria are calculated by using the Analytical Hierarchy Process ( AHP ). The study shows that the net outranking flow for the most preferred biomass types are: grass‐clover 2.8, wheat‐straw 1.2 and willow 1, representing the biomass categories green, yellow and woody, respectively. The overall order of the preferred biomass types is grass‐clover, pure grass, alfalfa from the green category; straw based on wheat and barley from the yellow category; and willow from the woody category. Furthermore, irrespective of whether or not the raw materials are processed in integrated biorefineries, preferences on biomass types are also important in the context of their sustainable conversions in related biorefinery platforms (e.g. straw in a sugar‐based lignocellulosic biorefinery and grass‐clover in a green biorefinery). © 2015 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd