Giving added value to products from biomass: the role of mathematical programming in the product-driven process synthesis framework

In the first years of the 2000's the late professor Peter Bongers introduced together with his co-workers at Unilever a design methodology that could be applied in the development of new products and processes for structured food products; the product-driven process synthesis method (PDPS). The method was successfully employed in the following years, designing new products from different bio based sources. Although researchers used the method and even made improvements; the structural incorporation of mathematical programming tools has been lacking and this seems to be a crucial component for decision-making processes. In this contribution we will discuss the possibilities to extend the PDPS framework with several of these optimization tools.