Automated targeting for resource conservation network with interception placement

After the opportunities for maximum material recovery are exhausted through direct reuse/recycle, fresh resources consumption may be further reduced with the use of interception/regeneration processes. This paper presents an optimisation-based procedure known as automated targeting to locate the minimum resource consumption targets for a resource conservation network (RCN) with interception placement. The automated targeting was originally developed for mass integration by El-Halwagi and Manousiothakis (1990). Based on the concept of insight-based targeting approach, the automated targeting technique is formulated as a linear programming (LP) model for which the global optimum is guaranteed if a solution exists. A literature example is solved to illustrate the proposed approach.