India

This work investigates a biomass-driven multi-generation system designed for simultaneous power freshwater and hydrogen production addressing the interlinked energy-waterenvironment nexus. The configuration integrates Brayton supercritical carbon dioxide (SCO2) organic Rankine cycle (ORC) and thermoelectric generator (TEG) subsystems to maximize utilization of biomass-derived syngas. The recovered energy drives a reverse osmosis (RO) desalination unit for freshwater production and an alkaline electrolyzer for hydrogen generation followed by two-stage compression for storage. Under baseline conditions the system generates 1.99 MW of electricity 9.38 kg/h of hydrogen and 88.6 m3 /h of freshwater with an overall exergetic efficiency of 20.25 % emissions intensity of 0.85 kg/kWh and a payback period of 5.87 years. The Brayton cycle accounts for 49.3 % of the total cost rate while the gasifier exhibits the highest exergy destruction at 46 %. Sensitivity analyses show that varying biomass moisture content (10–30 %) and operating temperatures (700–900 ◦C) significantly influence system performance. Using a data-driven optimization framework that combines artificial neural networks (ANN) and a genetic algorithm (GA) the system’s exergetic efficiency improves to 21.76 % freshwater output rises to 90.96 m3 /h and emissions intensity decreases to 0.877 kg/kWh. Additionally optimization reduces the total cost rate by 2.71 % leading to a payback period of 5.4 years and enhances the system’s overall performance by 12.64 %.