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Harnessing renewable energy (RE) sources to power desalination systems can migrate the pressures of freshwater scarcity and fossil fuel depletion. In this paper, a novel mathematical framework was developed to assess the sustainability of different RE-powered desalination systems, which is very essential for their portfolio selection, by resorting to the fuzzy multi-attribute decision making (MAMD) methods. In the framework, an evaluation system including ten attributes from four dimensions is introduced, while fuzzy triangular numbers and interval values are employed to capture the epistemic and aleatory uncertainties of decision information, respectively. More importantly, three fuzzy MADM methods were proposed in the framework to make the following methodological contributions: (1) fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory-based analytic network process (DANP) offers a reliable weighting result by addressing the interrelationships among the attributes; (2) fuzzy full consistency method (FUCOM) can easily but rigorously quantify the qualitative attributes by using the simplified pair-wise comparisons; (3) interval vector-aided technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (VATOPSIS) generates a rational ranking sequence by incorporating the balance among multi-attributes. To illustrate the proposed framework, six RE-powered desalination systems were studied, showing that the solar thermal-powered multi-effect distillation would be the best option under current conditions. Finally, the effectiveness and advantages of the proposed framework were verified by results comparison and discussion. Image 1 • A framework was proposed to assess the sustainability of RE-powered desalination. • The mathematical framework can address both the epistemic and aleatory uncertainties. • A fuzzy DANP approach was used to assign the weights to the interrelated attributes. • A fuzzy FUCOM method was developed to easily quantify the qualitative attributes. • An interval VATOPSIS method was introduced to rationally rank the alternatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hydrogen has emerged as one of the most promising players in the future energy system for a better life due to multiple advantages, it is important to identify the most sustainable technology for producing hydrogen among several alternatives. This study aims to propose a novel multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) framework for prioritizing hydrogen production technologies under data uncertainties by combining the methods of interval best-worst method (IBWM), interval entropy technique (IET), and interval best-worst projection (IBWP). In the framework, the IBWM and the IET methods were integrated to offer a comprehensive weighting result by capturing both the uncertain subjective judgments and uncertain objective information regarding the importance of multiple criteria; the IBWP approach was introduced to offer a rigorous ranking result by aggregating both the absolute performance and relative balance of the alternatives regarding the multi-criteria system in uncertain conditions. An illustrative case considering five hydrogen production technologies was studied to verify the feasibility of the proposed framework, while results comparisons and sensitivity analysis were implemented to indicate the necessities and advantages of the developed MCDM methods. • A novel framework was proposed for selecting hydrogen production technology. • Uncertainties were incorporated into the sustainability assessment framework. • The interval BWM and the interval entropy were combined for weighting the criteria. • A novel IBWP method was developed for ranking technology alternatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]