S U S TA I N A B L E P R O D U C T I O N A N D C O N S U M P T I O N 8 (2016) 57–63

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Sustainable Production and Consumption

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/spc

A multi-period source–sink mixed integer linear

programming model for biochar-based carbon sequestration
systems

Raymond R. Tan ∗
Chemical Engineering Department, De La Salle University, 2401 Taft Avenue, 0922 Manila, Philippines

A B S T R A C T

Biochar-based systems are a potentially effective means of large-scale carbon sequestration. Such systems rely on
carbonization of biomass into biochar, which can then be added to soil for the dual purpose of sequestering carbon
and improving fertility. When properly deployed, these systems can potentially achieve negative emissions through
the net transfer of carbon from the atmosphere into the ground. In this work, an optimization model is developed
to determine the allocation of biochar streams of different quality levels to various biochar sinks, which are farms
whose tolerance to impurities present in biochar are known a priori. The optimization model determines source–sink
allocation of biochar so as to minimize total system carbon footprint, while ensuring that soil quality parameters
for each sink are not exceeded. An illustrative case study is solved to demonstrate the use of the model.

Keywords: Biochar; Negative emissions technology; Carbon sequestration; Optimization; Mixed integer linear
programming; Source–sink model

c 2016 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
⃝

1. Introduction
Negative emission technologies (NETs) may become neces-
sary in order to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2 )
levels to safe levels during the course of the 21st Century.
Examples of NET options include direct air capture (DAC),
augmented ocean disposal (i.e., ocean liming or fertiliza-
tion), bioenergy with CO2 capture and storage (BECCS), and
biochar application to soil (McLaren, 2012; McGlashan et al.,
2012). The latter option has traditionally been used as a soil
amendment strategy, but is now recognized as a potentially
important agro-industrial strategy for climate change mitiga-
tion, because it results in the net transfer of carbon from the
atmosphere into the ground (Lehmann et al., 2011). This ben-
efit results from three main steps: the net transfer of car-
bon from atmospheric CO2 into biomass (via photosynthesis),
from biomass into biochar (via thermochemical conversion)
and from free biochar into soil carbon (via soil amendment).
The pyrolysis of biomass yields gas (syngas), liquid (bio-oil)
and solid fractions (biochar) in varying proportions, depend-
ing on feedstock characteristics and processing conditions.
The biochar that is formed is a carbon-rich solid which is
in turn comprised of labile (degradable) and recalcitrant (un-
reactive) fractions. When biochar is applied to soil, the re-
calcitrant fraction decomposes very slowly, typically with a
half-life measured on the time scale of a few centuries;
thus, application of biochar can potentially result in semi-
permanent sequestration of carbon, which can prove useful
for achieving medium-term reductions in CO2 levels in the
coming decades (Lehmann et al., 2011). Furthermore, biochar
can improve the quality of soil, thus improving crop yields
or reducing the need for fertilizers. It has further been ar-
gued by biochar proponents that additional climatic bene-
fits can be achieved from reduced fertilizer demand, reduced

∗ Fax: +63 2 536 4226..

E-mail address: Raymond.Tan@dlsu.edu.ph.
Received 29 March 2016; Received in revised form 5 August 2016; Accepted 8 August 2016; Published online 17 August 2016.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.spc.2016.08.001
2352-5509/⃝c 2016 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
58 S U S TA I N A B L E P R O D U C T I O N A N D C O N S U M P T I O N 8 (2016) 57–63

terms of technological readiness level (TRL), with large-scale

Nomenclature deployment being at least a decade away; part of the uncer-
tainty lies in case-specific limiting factors, such as supply of
biomass feedstock for biochar production and suitability of
Sets
soil for biochar application. Economic barriers to commercial
I Biochar sources use have also been pointed out (Vochozka et al., 2016). Many
J Biochar sinks current developments are documented in the website of Inter-
K Biochar contaminants national Biochar Initiative (www.biochar-international.org).
P Time periods Biochar critics point out that there are still conflicting
results in the scientific literature (Kuppusamy et al., 2016),
Indexes suggesting that the potential to achieve the co-benefits
i Biochar source index (i = 1, 2, 3 . . . M) claimed above is highly dependent on site-specific or project-
j Biochar sink index (j = 1, 2, 3 . . . N) specific details. Potential disadvantages of biochar application
k Biochar contaminant index (k = 1, 2, 3 . . . Q) include albedo effects due to soil darkening, excessive pH
p Time period index (p = 1, 2, 3 . . . T) elevation, as well as adverse effects on soil quality due
to the introduction of contaminants such as salts, heavy
Parameters metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and dioxins.
While laboratory assays can be used to determine impurity
Ai Sequestration factor of biochar from source
levels in biochar (Amin et al., 2016), it is more challenging
i (tCO2 /t)
to accurately determine the tolerable safe levels of such
Bij Transportation emissions factor for biochar
impurities in the soil to which biochar is added. These
from source i to sink j (tCO2 /t)
risks suggest that careful planning will be necessary to
Djp Limiting biochar application rate at sink j in
match biochar sources (pyrolysis plants and the associated
period p (t/y)
feedstocks) with biochar sinks (farms and the associated local
Lj Limiting biochar storage capacity of sink j (t)
soil conditions) in order to minimize the potential for adverse
N Limit to the number of sources linked to any
unintended consequences. Based on the current state of
given sink
knowledge, it remains uncertain whether biochar will prove
Qikp Concentration of contaminant k in biochar
to be a scalable, cost-effective technological option to mitigate
produced by source i in period p (ppm or g/t)
climate change. However, in the event that it does, there
Q∗jk Concentration limit of contaminant k in
will clearly be a need for decision support tools to guide the
biochar used in sink j (ppm or g/t) implementation of commercial biochar-based projects on a
SLip Lower limit of biochar production rate of source globally significant scale.
i in period p (t/y) The area of process systems engineering (PSE) has evolved
SU
ip
Upper limit of biochar production rate of source over the decades to cover novel applications outside of
i in period p (t/y) the traditional scope of synthesis and design problems in
T Duration of planning horizon (y) chemical engineering, such as supply chain planning and
enterprise-wide optimization (Stephanopoulos and Reklaitis,
Variables 2011). There has been significant recent interest in the
bi Binary variable for sink i use of PSE tools for the design of sustainable biomass-
bij Binary variable for biochar allocated from based facilities such as biorefineries and polygeneration
source i to sink j plants (e.g., Martin and Grossmann, 2015). Similarly, the
sip Biochar production rate of source i in period p allied sub-discipline of process integration (PI) has also
(t/y) diversified from the original focus of process heat recovery
xijp Amount of biochar allocated from source i to and energy efficiency enhancement, to a broad range of
sink j in period p (t/y) structurally analogous problems that can be dealt with
using pinch analysis, mathematical programming, or allied
methodologies such as process graphs (Klemeš et al., 2013).
methane (CH4 ) and nitrous oxide (N2 O) emissions from soil, These historical trends suggest that quantitative tools can be
and avoided emissions (from offsets of fossil fuel combus- developed to aid in the planning of commercial-scale biochar
tion and biomass decomposition). The maximum sustain- systems. Examples to date include life cycle assessment (LCA)
able technical potential (MSTP) of emissions reduction with of biochar systems (Roberts et al., 2010), modeling of co-
biochar has been estimated at 130 Gt CO2 –C equivalent until production of biochar and bioenergy (Field et al., 2013) and
the end of the century (Woolf et al., 2010), with roughly 60% optimal synthesis of polygeneration plants with biochar as a
of this total being attributable to direct sequestration of car- major co-product (Ubando et al., 2014).
bon in the biochar itself. McLaren (2012) estimates the emis- In this work, a novel multi-period source–sink mixed
sions reduction potential of biochar at 0.9–3.0 Gt CO2 /y, at integer linear programming (MILP) model is developed for the
a cost of US$8–300/t CO2 . It is notable that biochar is a low- allocation of biochar for carbon sequestration. The proposed
technology measure that can be more easily deployed in the model draws on features from structurally analogous models
developing world than alternative NETs (McGlashan et al., developed previously for bioenergy supply networks (Foo
2012), although further research is needed to optimize car- et al., 2013) and CO2 capture and storage (CCS) networks
bon sequestration benefits. It has recently been suggested (Tan et al., 2013); these models in turn fall under a general
that biochar production can be used as a sustainable strat- class of source–sink models used extensively in PI literature
egy for managing invasive plant species (Guerena et al., 2015). (Foo and Tan, in press). Such models are similar to well-
Biochar was rated by McLaren (2012) as being intermediate in known transportation models in operational research (OR)
 S U S TA I N A B L E P R O D U C T I O N A N D C O N S U M P T I O N
Fig. 1 – Source–sink superstructure for biochar network.
literature, augmented with stream “quality” constraints.
The framework is proposed here as a decision-support
tool to facilitate high-level planning of biochar source–sink
networks. The model captures generic features of large-scale
biochar-based sequestration systems as currently envisioned
in the literature. However, its formulation is also sufficiently
flexible so as to allow case-specific operational details to be
incorporated through the introduction of additional features
(i.e., variables, parameters and constraints) as the state of
knowledge evolves. The proposed formulation can thus serve
as the core for the development of more complex models in
the future. The rest of this note is organized as follows. First,
a formal problem statement is given. Next, the optimization
model formulation is described. A hypothetical illustrative
case study is then solved as proof of concept in order to
demonstrate the model’s functionality. Finally, conclusions
and prospects for future work are given.
2. Formal problem statement
The problem to be addressed can be represented schemati-
cally as in Fig. 1, and may be formally stated as follows: Given
a set of biochar sources i ∈ I (biomass processing facilities,
i = 1, 2, 3 . . . M) to be allocated to a set of biochar sinks j ∈
J (farms or other tracts of land, j = 1, 2, 3 . . . N) during the
course of a planning horizon comprised of time intervals p ∈ P
(one-year periods, p = 1, 2, 3 . . . T); given that, for each biochar
source i, the annual flowrate limits and levels of impurities
k ∈ K (contaminants, k = 1, 2, 3 . . . Q) are known; given that, for
each biochar sink j, the maximum annual flowrate, maximum
total storage capacity and maximum allowable level of each
impurity k are known; given that, for each potential match
between source i and sink j, the carbon footprint associated
with the handling and transportation of each unit of biochar
is known; the objective of the model is to determine the op-
timum allocation of biochar from each sink i to each sink j in
each time period k, in order to maximize the system-wide net
CO2 sequestration.
3. Mathematical model formulation
The MILP model formulation is described here. The
objective function is to maximize the total cumulative CO2
8 (2016) 57–63 59
sequestration during the entire time horizon covered by the
model:
maximize Σi Σj Σp Ai xijp − Σi Σj Σp Bij xijp (1)
where Ai is the sequestration factor of biochar from source
i (typically expressed in t CO2 /t), Bij is the transportation
and handling penalty for biochar from source i to sink j (also
in t CO2 /t), and xijp is the amount of biochar (expressed in
t/y) allocated from source i to sink j in period p. Parameter
Ai gives the amount of CO2 sequestered per unit mass of
biochar, and is a function of the fraction of recalcitrant carbon
in the biochar as well as upstream operational emissions; in
principle, this parameter can be redefined to also quantify
synergistic effects resulting from modification of CH4 and
N2 O flows from soil, which can likewise be expressed in terms
of CO2 equivalents. The coefficient Bij gives CO2 emissions
per unit mass of biochar allocated to a given source–sink
pair, and is dependent on distance between a source and a
sink, as well as the mode of transport. Handling and tillage
emissions at the biochar application site are also assumed
here to be subsumed within Bij (whose magnitude is typically
very small compared to Ai ), but may be separated in the future
if necessary. Next, the source balance is given by:
Σj xijp = sip ∀i, p (2)
where sip is the total biochar production from source i in
period p (expressed in t/y). This quantity is in turn subject
to upper and lower limits:
bi SLip ≤ sip ≤ bi SU
ip
∀i, p (3)
bi ∈ {0, 1} ∀i (4)
where bi is a binary variable signifying the existence or
non-existence of source i at any time within the planning
horizon, and SLip and SU
ip
are the lower and upper limits,
respectively, of biochar production rate from source i. Variable
bi becomes zero if a value of sip that falls within the bounds
cannot be found. The values of the lower and upper limits
can be exogenously specified to reflect unique operating
conditions (e.g., minimum economically viable production
rate, or maximum feasible production rate based on biomass
availability). Also, their values can be set to zero for periods
in which the source does not exist or operate. Then, biochar
balances at the sinks are governed by:
Σi xijp ≤ Djp ∀j, p (5)
Σi Σp xijp ≤ Lj ∀j (6)
Σi xijp Qikp ≤ Djp Q∗jk ψ ∀j, k, p (7)
where Djp is the limiting biochar application rate from sink
j in period p (expressed in t/y), Lj is the total biochar
storage capacity of sink j (in t), Qikp is the concentration of
contaminant k in biochar produced by source i in period p,
Q∗jk is the maximum tolerable level of contaminant k in the
biochar to be applied to the soil in sink j (contaminant levels
are expressed in appropriate units, such as ppm or g/t), and
ψ is a dimensionless risk aversion parameter in the interval
[0, 1]. In practice, Lj may be determined from factors such as
land area, topsoil depth and limiting biochar–soil blending
rate. Also, there may be special cases where the values of
Djp and Qikp remain the same throughout all periods p. For
example, the biochar annual application rate limit may just
be a uniform allocation of total storage capacity over the
total planning horizon of duration T, such that Djp = Lj /T.
In the case of the biochar quality, it may be assumed that
60 S U S TA I N A B L E P R O D U C T I O N A N D C O N S U M P T I O N 8 (2016) 57–63

Table 1 – Biochar source data for the case study.

Source Minimum Maximum Sequestration Biochar quality Years of

production rate (t/y) production rate (t/y) factor (t CO2 /t) (mg PAH/kg) operation
1 1500 2000 2.2 10 1–10
2 1000 1200 2.0 2 1–10
3 2500 3000 2.5 1 3–10

Table 2 – Biochar sink data for the case study.

Sink Area (ha) Application Storage capacity (t) Limiting biochar Limiting biochar
dosage (t/ha) flowrate (t/y) quality (mg PAH/kg)
1 200 50 10,000 1000 25
2 500 20 10,000 1000 10
3 400 25 10,000 1000 5
4 1000 30 30,000 3000 2

each source, given fairly uniform biomass feedstock during its Table 3 – Transportation distances in km for source–sink
operating life, and without significant process retrofits, gives pairs in the case study.
a consistent contaminant level in its product, such that Qik1 =
Qik2 . . . = QikT . Parameter ψ is used in the model to quantify Source Sink
1 2 3 4
the extent to which the decision-maker is willing to risk soil
contamination; its value is zero for a completely risk averse 1 70 60 50 120
decision-maker (i.e., if no level of soil contamination can be 2 80 60 40 50
3 100 80 80 40
tolerated), and unity for a risk-taking decision-maker who
is willing to let soil contaminant levels reach the prescribed
physical limit. Finally, limits are imposed on all flowrates (Kuppusamy et al., 2016). Table 1 shows the source data for the
between source–sink pairs: three biochar plants; note that Sources 1 and 2 are operational
throughout the entire 10-year planning horizon, while Source
0 ≤ xijp ≤ bij SU
ip
∀i, j, p (8)
3 only begins to operate in the third year. The characteristics
bij ∈ {0, 1} ∀i, j (9) of the sinks are given in Table 2. The storage capacity of each
farm or tract of land is based on the amount of biochar that
where bij is a binary variable signifying the existence or
can be added until the soil is saturated; it is further assumed
non-existence of a stream of biochar from source i to sink
that the annual limit to the rate of biochar application is just
j. As with other applications in PI literature, the presence
one-tenth of the storage limit, based on the specified 10-year
of these binary variables allows case-specific constraints
time horizon. The final column of Table 2 gives the maximum
on network topology to be added to the model (Poplewski
level of PAH in biochar that can be safely added to the soil
et al., 2010). Examples of such constraints include limits on
(note that 1 mg/kg = 1 g/t); in practice, this limit is based on
network complexity, specification of forbidden source–sink
background levels of PAH already present at the site, as well as
combinations, etc., and in many cases such considerations
the characteristics of the crop to be cultivated at the farm. The
can be formulated as additional linear constraints. The
distances between the biochar sources and sinks are given in
given objective function and constraints constitute an MILP
Table 3. It is assumed that the carbon footprint of transporting
model. Solution of such models for problems of practical size
biochar by truck is 0.1 kg CO2 /t/km (Foo et al., 2013). The
generally presents no significant computational challenges
MILP model corresponding to this problem was implemented
using branch-and-bound solvers embedded in currently
using the commercial optimization software LINGO 13.0 and
available commercial software (including solvers embedded
solved with negligible CPU time using a laptop with 8.00 GB
in common spreadsheet applications such as Microsoft Excel).
RAM, i7-3540MCPU and a 64-bit operating system running on
The use of this MILP model as a planning tool is illustrated in
Windows 8 Pro.
the next section.

4.1. Baseline scenario

4. Illustrative case study
This section uses a hypothetical case study with three
sources, four sinks, one contaminant and a 10-year time
horizon as a didactic example to illustrate the use of the
model. Although the scenario described is fictitious, the
features of the case study use plausible assumptions based
on the current state of the biochar literature. The size of
the problem is also deliberately kept small to allow for
transparent inspection of the optimization results. In this
case, the biochar contaminant of interest is PAH, which can
form during thermal processing of biomass. The presence
of PAH is a critical issue in biochar systems due potential
adverse health effects resulting from crop contamination
The risk aversion parameter ψ is set to a value of 1 for the
baseline scenario. The resulting optimal allocation of biochar
is given in Table 4. Each cell has two values; the first number
gives the biochar allocation in the first two years of operation,
while the second number gives the allocation from the third
to the tenth years. In the first two years, it can be seen that the
model recommends blending of biochar to ensure that PAH
limit at Sink 3 is met; it can easily be verified from simple
material balance computations that 375 t/y of biochar from
Source 1 (with PAH level of 10 mg/kg) mixed with 625 t/y of
biochar from Source 2 (with PAH level of 2 mg/kg) results in a
stream of 1000 t/y with PAH level of 5 mg/kg. The effective rate
of CO2 sequestration during the first two years is 6782.4 t/y;
 S U S TA I N A B L E P R O D U C T I O N A N D C O N S U M P T I O N 8 (2016) 57–63 61

Table 4 – Optimal source–sink network for the baseline scenario of the case study (biochar
flowrates in t/y).

Source Sink Total

1 2 3 4
1 625; 1000 1000; 1000 375; 0 2000; 2000
2 625; 1000 575; 0 1200; 1000
3 0; 3000 0; 3000
Total 625; 1000 1000; 1000 1000; 1000 575; 3000

Table 5 – Optimal source–sink network for ψ = 0.8 (biochar flowrates in t/y).

Source Sink Total

1 2 3 4
1 950; 1000 800; 750 250; 250 2000; 2000
2 0; 250 750; 750 450; 0 1200; 1000
3 0; 3000 0; 3000
Total 950; 1000 800; 1000 1000; 1000 450; 3000

Table 6 – Optimal source–sink network for ψ = 0.6 (biochar flowrates in t/y).

Source Sink Total

1 2 3 4
1 1000; 1000 600; 528 300; 125 100; 67 2000; 2000
2 0; 325 0; 875 1200; 0 1200; 1200
3 0; 67 0; 2933 0; 3000
Total 1000; 1000 600; 920 300; 1000 1300; 3000

ficult to determine the level of impurity that can be toler-

Fig. 2 – Sensitivity of optimal solution to parameter ψ.
this net value results from 6800 t/y of CO2 sequestration
via direct biochar application, minus a small penalty of
17.6 t/y of emissions from transportation. Commencement of
operation of Source 3 from the third year onward results in a
modified allocation for the remainder of the 10-year planning
horizon, as indicated by the second set of numbers in each
cell of Table 4. In this case, the allocation network is much
simpler and requires no more biochar blending. During the
final eight years of operation of the biochar system, the net
sequestration rate is 13,871 t/y, which results from 13,900 t/y
of sequestration from biochar, minus 29 t/y of emissions
from biochar transport (see Fig. 2). Thus, during the 10-year
period of operation, the net CO2 sequestration achieved by
the system is 124,532 t, which consists of the biochar CO2
sequestration of 124,800 t (6800 t/y × 2 y + 13, 900 × 8 y)
minus the total transportation penalty 268 t (17.6 t/y × 2
y + 29 t/y × 8 y).
4.2. Sensitivity analysis with respect to ψ
Although the quality of biochar can be easily determined via
laboratory tests (Amin et al., 2016), in practice it is more dif-
ated by the receiving soil. The risk aversion parameter ψ is
included in the model to account for this uncertainty. Sensi-
tivity analysis is performed here to determine the tradeoff be-
tween CO2 sequestration benefit and soil contamination risk
in biochar systems. The MILP is solved repeatedly for ψ = 0.9,
0.8. . . 0.2 and 0.1, to determine the extent of sequestration
benefits that can be achieved for an increasingly risk averse
decision-maker (note that it is not necessary to solve the case
of ψ = 0, for which no biochar application is possible at all).
Fig. 2 shows the tradeoff between these two conflicting con-
siderations for the biochar system. It is notable that, even at
ψ = 0.5, the optimal CO2 sequestration level is 118,285 t; this
result means that it is possible to reduce soil contaminant
loading to half of the limiting values in Table 3, with a corre-
sponding reduction in CO2 sequestration of just 5% relative
to the baseline level determined in the previous subsection.
However, the magnitude of CO2 sequestration declines more
rapidly as ψ is reduced further below a value of 0.5. Selected
networks corresponding to ψ = 0.8, 0.6, 0.4 and 0.2 are shown
in Tables 5–8, respectively. It is notable that the production of
low-quality biochar from Source 1 is reduced at a conservative
value of ψ = 0.4, and is eliminated entirely for ψ = 0.2.
4.3. Network simplification
The integer variables in the MILP models can be used
to impose additional user-specified constraints on network
topology (Poplewski et al., 2010). For example, this point is
illustrated here using the network determined previously for
ψ = 0.6, which is shown in Table 6. It can be seen that
the optimal network requires a total of eight source–sink
matches from the third year of operations onward, and that
Sink 2 in particular receives biochar from all three biochar
sources. This configuration is able to sequester 122,799 t
of CO2 through the duration of the planning horizon. The
62 S U S TA I N A B L E P R O D U C T I O N A N D C O N S U M P T I O N 8 (2016) 57–63

Table 7 – Optimal source–sink network for ψ = 0.4 (biochar flowrates in t/y).

Source Sink Total

1 2 3 4
1 1000; 1000 400; 340 200; 200 240; 0 1840; 1540
2
3 0; 600 0; 2400 0; 3000
Total 1000; 1000 400; 940 200; 200 240; 2400

Table 8 – Optimal source–sink network for ψ = 0.2 (biochar flowrates in t/y).

Source Sink Total

1 2 3 4
1
2 0; 1000 100; 200 500; 0 600; 0 1200; 1200
3 0; 800 0; 1000 0; 1200 0; 3000
Total 0; 1000 100; 1000 500; 1000 600; 1200

Table 9 – Optimal source–sink network for ψ = 0.6 and N = 2 (biochar flowrates in t/y).

Source Sink Total

1 2 3 4
1 1000; 1000 600; 500 300; 222 1900; 1722
2 0; 500 1200; 689 1200; 1189
3 0; 778 0; 2222 0; 3000
Total 1000; 1000 600; 1000 300; 1000 1200; 2911

Table 10 – Optimal source–sink network for ψ = 0.6 and N = 1 (biochar flowrates in t/y).

Source Sink Total

1 2 3 4
1 1000; 1000 600; 600 1600; 1600
2 1000; 1000 1000; 1000
3 0; 3000 0; 3000
Total 1000; 1000 600; 600 1000; 1000 0; 3000

network topology may be simplified by adding the following
constraint:
Σi bij ≤ N ∀j
where N is the limit to the number of biochar sources that are
allowed to be linked to any given sink. Solving the model for
N = 2 gives the network shown in Table 9, for which the CO2
sequestration is 122,196 t. Note that the resulting network
simplification reduces the extent of carbon sequestration by
a mere fraction of 1%. On the other hand, using N = 1
gives the drastically simplified network shown in Table 10;
this solution sequesters 114,958 t of CO2 , which represents a
reduction of about 6% relative to the unrestricted network in
Table 6.
5. Conclusions
contamination tradeoff to be calibrated, while the inclusion
of integer variables allows network topology to be controlled
on a case-to-case basis. The MILP model proposed here can
(10)
thus serve as a high-level planning tool to determine the
benefits that potentially accrue from a large scale, biochar-
based carbon sequestration project. Future work can focus on
detailed operational extensions of this basic framework, us-
ing the model developed here as the core to which new fea-
tures (i.e., parameters, variables and constraints) are added;
multiple-objective extensions can also be developed to incor-
porate economic aspects (Vochozka et al., 2016) as well as var-
ious supply chain sustainability metrics used in the literature
(Ahi et al., 2016). Alternative modes of long-term biochar stor-
age other than direct soil amendment can also be explored.
Furthermore, the model should eventually be tested on pilot-
scale biochar demonstration projects.

An MILP model for the allocation of biochar to different land Acknowledgments

sinks has been developed in this work. The optimization
model uses a multi-period source–sink formulation to en-
able biochar streams of varying quality to be distributed and
mixed, such that system-wide CO2 emissions are minimized;
the model simultaneously ensures that biochar impurity lev-
els do not exceed the tolerances of the different tracts of land
that are used as carbon sinks. The model also incorporates a
risk aversion parameter to allow CO2 sequestration and soil
The financial support of the Philippine Commission on
Higher Education (CHED) via the Philippine Higher Edu-
cation Research Network (PHERNet) Sustainability Studies
Program, under the project entitled “Development of Pro-
cess Systems Engineering (PSE) Approaches to the Design
and Operation of Low-Carbon Energy System”, is gratefully
acknowledged.
 S U S TA I N A B L E P R O D U C T I O N A N D C O N S U M P T I O N
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