(397b) Ontology Engineering and Its Applications to the Development of Biorefineries

The paper addresses the deployment of ontology engineering in modelling, scheduling and planning aspects of the biorefineries. A vast amount of data, models and designs are available in the area yet scattered and heterogeneous. Models and tools are designed requiring experts to handle codes and databases to further proceed studies and analysis. The scattered parts of the models unknown to the non-experts require modification selectively depending on the scenario and criteria examined. These parts are consisted of complex networks of qualitative data (chemicals, technologies, products etc), quantitative data (cost, enery consumption, environmental impact etc) and scheduling problems for the field. A key challenge in the development of biorefining is to establish connections among the complex networks in a dynamic framework easily used by non-experts combining all the scattered parts of the data sources. Through ontology engineering the available data and knowledge are concentrated in a structural and flexible form to contribute directly to the development of biorefinery-based models (GAMS, MATLAB, Aspen). The changing parts synthesizing the models are organized in the ontology and correlated to each other to serve all possible combinations. A methodology to automatically complete the context of any scenario of the biorefining models depending on selective criteria is illustrated by this paper.