A multi-commodity flow formulation for the optimal design of wastewater treatment networks. (4th March 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Cheng, Xin; Li, Xiang
• Is Part Of: Computers & chemical engineering. Volume 134(2020)
• Publication Date: 2020-03-04
• Subjects: Wastewater treatment -- Multi-commodity flow -- Global optimization; Chemical engineering -- Data processing -- Periodicals; 660.0285
• DOI: 10.1016/j.compchemeng.2019.106681
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0098-1354

Abstract

Highlights: Develop the first multi-commodity follow formulation for the wastewater treatment network optimization problem Propose conditions under which the selected commodities are adequate for modeling a wastewater treatment network Demonstrate that a single-contaminant commodity flow strategy usually works for wastewater treatment network optimization Show the significant computational advantage of the proposed formulation over a classical component based formulation via 16 problem instances Abstract: The wastewater treatment network (WWTN) optimization problem can be viewed as an extension of the generalized pooling problem (GPP), where not only the different streams are mixed and split, but also some chemical components are removed from the system. It is well known that a strong formulation is key to efficient global solution of GPP, and multi-commodity flow formulations have been recognized as such strong formulations. The paper presents the first multi-commodity flow formulation for the WWTN optimization problem. We discuss the challenges in adapting the classical multi-commodity flow approaches for a WWTN, and propose the conditions under which the selected commodities are adequate for modeling a WWTN. We prove that the proposed formulation is at least as strong as a classical component based formulation. We show the significant computational advantage of the proposed formulation over the component based formulation through 16 problem instances from the literature.