An anchor-tenant approach to the synthesis of carbon-hydrogen-oxygen symbiosis networks

Abstract Sustainable development of industrial cities and eco-industrial parks (EIPs) requires careful consideration and creation of synergistic opportunities among the participating entities. Recently, a multi-scale design approach was developed for carbon-hydrogen-oxygen symbiosis networks (CHOSYNs) with focus on the targeting, integration, and retrofitting of EIPs involving a set of existing facilities. Another important category of EIPs involves the grass-root design of industrial cities in which the participants are not originally known. Instead, “anchor” plants are first invited followed by the consideration and invitation of supporting facilities (referred to as “tenants”) that are to be determined according to integration opportunities with the anchors, other tenants, common infrastructure while accounting for resource limitations, market demands, and environmental regulations. The purpose of this work is to introduce a multi-scale targeting, synthesis, and optimization approach for the grass-root design of EIPs with known anchors. The CHOSYN framework is extended to tackle the case of candidate tenants with the objective of identifying industrial facilities, raw materials, byproducts, products, and wastes that can be effectively integrated with the anchors, among the participating tenants, and with the surrounding markets. Atomic-based and techno-economic targeting approaches are developed to identify benchmarks for mass integration within the EIP and to provide preliminary screening of the type and size of candidate tenants. Next, an optimization framework is developed to synthesize a highly-integrated and cost-effective cluster of anchors and tenants with sufficient design details on the individual facilities and the interaction among the participating plants. A case study is solved to demonstrate the multi-scale targeting, synthesis, and optimization approaches for the grass-root design of EIPs.