Multi-Criteria Decision Making in Chemical and Process Engineering: Methods, Progress, and Potential

Multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) is necessary for choosing one from the available alternatives (or from the Pareto-optimal solutions obtained by multi-objective optimization), where the performance of each alternative is quantified against several criteria (or objectives). This paper presents a comprehensive review of the application of MCDM methods in chemical and process engineering. It systematically outlines the essential steps in MCDM including the various normalization, weighting, and MCDM methods that are critical to decision making. The review draws on published papers identified through a search in the Scopus database, focusing on works by authors with more contributions to the field and on highly cited papers. Each selected paper was analyzed based on the MCDM, normalization, and weighting methods used. Additionally, this paper introduces two readily available programs for performing MCDM calculations. In short, it provides insights into the MCDM steps and methods, highlights their applications in chemical and process engineering, and discusses the challenges and prospects in this area.