Abstract
The decision-making process for selecting the suitable biomass materials from agricultural materials for processing into fuel briquettes is a complex problem, which is difficult to decide because it has several properties/factors to consider simultaneously. In this paper, the TOPSIS, DEA and hybrid DEA-TOPSIS techniques have been proposed for evaluating and ranking the suitable biomass materials from agricultural materials. Firstly, the relevant properties of biomass materials for processing into fuel briquettes were determined. The properties of each biomass material from the agricultural materials were viewed as input and output variables for DEA (as factors for TOPSIS) and the alternatives of the biomass materials from agricultural materials were viewed as decision making units for DEA (as alternatives for TOPSIS). After that, using TOPSIS, DEA and the hybrid DEA-TOPSIS techniques were used to evaluate and rank the biomass materials from agricultural materials. In the case study 1, there are 23 alternatives and 5 relevant criteria, including the moisture content, ash, volatile matters, fixed carbon and heating value. The results of the Spearman correlation coefficient test between the hybrid DEA-TOPSIS technique and DEA and TOPSIS techniques were 0.863 and 0.932, respectively. For the case study 2, there are 7 alternatives and 3 relevant criteria, including the heating value, fixed carbon and moisture content. The results of the Spearman correlation coefficient test between the hybrid DEA-TOPSIS technique and DEA and TOPSIS techniques were same value (Correlation coefficients are equal to 1). For these reasons, the proposed techniques can lead to selecting suitable biomass materials for processing into fuel briquettes by considering several relevant criteria.
Keywords : Biomass materials, Multi-criteria decision making, Data environment analysis, TOPSIS
