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Life Cycle Assessment is a tool to assess the environmental impacts and resources used throughout a product's life cycle, i.e., from raw material acquisition, via production and use phases, to waste management. The methodological development in LCA has been strong, and LCA is broadly applied in practice. The aim of this paper is to provide a review of recent developments of LCA methods. The focus is on some areas where there has been an intense methodological development during the last years. We also highlight some of the emerging issues. In relation to the Goal and Scope definition we especially discuss the distinction between attributional and consequential LCA. For the Inventory Analysis, this distinction is relevant when discussing system boundaries, data collection, and allocation. Also highlighted are developments concerning databases and Input-Output and hybrid LCA. In the sections on Life Cycle Impact Assessment we discuss the characteristics of the modelling as well as some recent developments for specific impact categories and weighting. In relation to the Interpretation the focus is on uncertainty analysis. Finally, we discuss recent developments in relation to some of the strengths and weaknesses of LCA.

An experimental apparatus for evaluating carbon dioxide local heat transfer coefficients during flow boiling has been set up at University of Naples Federico II. In this paper, the local heat transfer coefficient measured is evaluated relative to the measurement error, varying the type and costs of the instrumentation. The analytical analysis has been performed prior to construction of the test facility. The main aim of the work is to provide a methodology that allows one to reach the best compromise between measurement accuracy and financial resources in the selection of the instrumentation.

The 2009 World Health Organization (WHO) Guidelines on hand hygiene in health care recommend alcohol-based hand rubs for both hygienic and pre-surgical hand treatment. Two formulations based on ethanol 80% v/v and 2-propanol 75% v/v are proposed for local preparation in healthcare settings where commercial products are not available or too expensive. Both formulations and our suggested modifications (using mass rather than volume percent concentrations) were evaluated for their conformity with the efficacy requirements of the forthcoming amendment of the European Norm (EN) 12791, i.e. non-inferiority of a product when compared with a reference procedure (1-propanol 60% v/v for 3 min) immediately and 3 h after antisepsis. In this study, the WHO-recommended formulations were tested for 3 min and 5 min. Neither formulation met the efficacy requirements of EN 12791 with 3 min application. Increasing the respective concentrations to 80 w/w (85% v/v) and 75 w/w (80% v/v), together with a prolonged application of 5 min, rendered the immediate effect of both formulations non-inferior to the reference antisepsis procedure. This was not the case with the 3h effect, which remained significantly inferior to the reference. Although the original formulations do not meet the efficacy requirements of EN 12791, the clinical significance of this finding deserves further clinical trials. To comply with the requirement of EN 12791, an amendment to the formulations is possible by increasing the alcohol concentrations through changing volume into mass percent and prolonging the duration of application from 3 min to 5 min.

In industrialized countries, large amounts of mineral wastes are produced. They are re-used in various ways, particularly in road and earth constructions, substituting primary resources such as gravel. However, they may also contain pollutants, such as heavy metals, which may be leached to the groundwater. The toxic impacts of these emissions are so far often neglected within Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) of products or waste treatment services and thus, potentially large environmental impacts are currently missed. This study aims at closing this gap by assessing the ecotoxic impacts of heavy metal leaching from industrial mineral wastes in road and earth constructions. The flows of metals such as Sb, As, Pb, Cd, Cr, Cu, Mo, Ni, V and Zn originating from three typical constructions to the environment are quantified, their fate in the environment is assessed and potential ecotoxic effects evaluated. For our reference country, Germany, the industrial wastes that are applied as Granular Secondary Construction Material (GSCM) carry more than 45,000 t of diverse heavy metals per year. Depending on the material quality and construction type applied, up to 150 t of heavy metals may leach to the environment within the first 100 years after construction. Heavy metal retardation in subsoil can potentially reduce the fate to groundwater by up to 100%. One major challenge of integrating leaching from constructions into macro-scale LCA frameworks is the high variability in micro-scale technical and geographical factors, such as material qualities, construction types and soil types. In our work, we consider a broad range of parameter values in the modeling of leaching and fate. This allows distinguishing between the impacts of various road constructions, as well as sites with different soil properties. The findings of this study promote the quantitative consideration of environmental impacts of long-term leaching in Life Cycle Assessment, complementing site-specific risk assessment, for the design of waste management strategies, particularly in the construction sector.

| openaire: EC/H2020/856602/EU//FINEST TWINS Funding Information: This work has been supported by the European Commission through the H2020 project Finest Twins grant No. 856602; and by the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research and European Regional Fund grant 2014-2020.4.01.20-0289. Additional support was acquired from the Estonian Research Council grant PSG739. Publisher Copyright: © 2023 Increasing use of volatile renewable energy sources causes challenges in balancing supply and demand. Therefore, demand-side flexibility has rising importance for system operators and balancing authorities. Flexibility management methods are needed to integrate loads like ventilation systems of different buildings (e.g., residential and commercial) into flexibility service. However, the available methods described in research papers require further development for implementation in practice. Heating and cooling systems have received much attention from researchers, but the potential of ventilation systems has been left out of focus. Therefore, this paper provides a complete set of novel flexibility management methods for ventilation systems created from an aggregator's viewpoint. The flexibility is quantified through capacity (e.i. the amount of power consumption that can be altered), forced ventilation rate duration, and the tendered price for the service. The proposed methods were tested on a building model constructed and simulated in IDA ICE. The data processing and flexibility management methods were applied in MATLAB. Two types of ventilation systems with different sensor configurations were considered: constant and variable air volume. Forced ventilation rate duration is calculated using energy and mass balance analysis where the root means squared error was 10 to 33 min, depending on the system type, measured parameter, and sensor location. The flexibility service pricing model was tested on the 2022 years' manual frequency restoration reserve (mFRR) activation and balance energy market data. Peer reviewed

Abstract Hydraulic balancing of heat distribution systems in buildings plays an important role in improving indoor thermal conditions as well as reducing energy consumption for space heating. Building energy models typically do not incorporate thermal comfort while it is essential for hydraulic balancing to do so. This paper proposes a methodology that assesses the impact of hydraulic balancing on the energy savings potential while ensuring thermal comfort of the occupants. The proposed methodology is composed of three parts, i.e. characterization, estimation and scenario analysis. First, we characterize indoor air temperature level of each individual flat in buildings belonging to the same central heating system to examine temperature variation among the flats. Second, thermal comfort under given indoor conditions is predicted by means of the PMV-PPD model (predicted mean vote-predicted percentage of dissatisfied) and the optimal indoor air temperature where most of the occupants feel comfortable is estimated. We calculate potential energy savings assuming that hydraulic balancing ensures ideal conditions where the indoor air temperature stays at the optimal level, thereby maintaining thermal acceptance of at least 94% of the occupants. A scenario analysis covering different types of occupant behavior allows to estimate the energy savings potential under different conditions. We test the applicability of the proposed methodology by applying it to a group of existing buildings in Geneva, Switzerland during the cold season. The case study demonstrates that there is an energy savings potential between 2% and 14%. We also discuss how the simulation results can guide practitioners operating hydraulic balancing programs.

This study assesses the environmental impact of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottle-to-fibre recycling using the methodology of life-cycle assessment (LCA). Four recycling cases, including mechanical recycling, semi-mechanical recycling, back-to-oligomer recycling and back-to-monomer recycling were analysed. Three allocation methods are applied for open-loop recycling, i.e. the “cut-off” approach, the “waste valuation” approach and the “system expansion” approach. Nine environmental impact indicators were analysed, i.e. non-renewable energy use (NREU), global warming potential (GWP), abiotic depletion, acidification, eutrophication, human toxicity, fresh water aquatic ecotoxicity, terrestrial ecotoxicity and photochemical oxidant formation. The LCA results are compared with virgin PET fibre and other commodity fibre products, i.e. cotton, viscose, PP (polypropylene) and PLA (polylactic acid). The LCA results show that recycled PET fibres offer important environmental benefits over virgin PET fibre. Depending on the allocation methods applied for open-loop-recycling, NREU savings of 40–85% and GWP savings of 25–75% can be achieved. Recycled PET fibres produced by mechanical recycling cause lower environmental impacts than virgin PET in at least eight out of a total of nine categories. Recycled fibres produced from chemical recycling allow to reduce impacts in six to seven out of a total of nine categories compared to virgin PET fibres. Note that while mechanical recycling has a better environmental profile than chemical recycling, chemically recycled fibres can be applied in a wider range of applications than mechanically recycled fibres.

Since the first studies by Ole Waever and the Copenhagen School, securitization theories have been criticized, revised and completed. Based on a specific empirical case study, this paper intends to do the same. Focused on the original case of environmental securitization within the United Nations (UN), this article aims to address the often-eluded question of the role of International Organizations in the securitization process. This example helps us to rethink securitization as well as politicization as discussed by securitization scholars and in environmental security studies. Contrary to the original definition of the Copenhagen School of depoliticization – understood as dedemocratisation –, this article argues that if, indeed, securitization can lead to depoliticization, the way we think depoliticization has to be revised. It can be an intentional strategic move by international securitizing actors to frame environment as an apolitical issue that requires a non-politicized scientific approach. Therefore, UN activities could reveal an attempt of a securitization without politicization, but not understood as a dedemocratisation.