IIT Hyderabad uses artificial intelligence to study supply chain network of biofuels

Bio-derived fuels are gaining widespread attention among the scientific community across the world. The work on biofuels is in response to the global call for reducing carbon emissions associated with the use of fossil fuels. In India too, biofuels have caught the imagination of researchers.

For instance, researchers of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Hyderabad have started using computational methods to understand the factors and impediments in incorporating biofuels into the fuel sector in India.

A unique feature of this work is that the framework considers revenue generation not only as an outcome of sales of the biofuel but also in terms of carbon credits via greenhouse gas emission savings throughout the project lifecycle.

The model has shown that if bioethanol is integrated with mainstream fuel, the costs associated with it are follows: production cost 43 per cent, import 25 per cent, transport 17 per cent, infrastructure 15 per cent, and inventory 0.43 per cent. The model has also shown that the feed availability to the tune of at least 40 per cent of the capacity is needed to meet the projected demands.