Reverse Logistics Network Design for SF6 in Chinese Electric Power Corporations

Greenhouse gas Sulfur Hexafluoride (SF6) is widely used in Chinese electric power corporations. The corporations need to establish the reverse logistics network for SF6 recovery to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. For managing SF6 waste and filling the research gap from theoretical and empirical research perspective in reverse logistics network design, we designed a comprehensive multi-layer reverse logistics network, including recycle points, recycle/distribution centers, and the SF6 treatment centers. The network was mathematically modeled as a biobjective and multi-layer fuzzy mixed-integer nonlinear programming model under return quantity uncertainty to minimize the total cost and maximize the comprehensive evaluation values of the SF6 treatment centers. With the cloud model, the method of fuzzy mathematical programming and the interactive non-inferior set estimation method, we obtained the optimal solution which determined transportation quantities of SF6 and the location of facilities. The proposed model was validated by a real world case study, which indicates that the emissions of SF6 will be reduced by 270.23 tons of gaseous SF6.