• Energy Research
• 7. Clean energy close
• 6. Clean water close
• DE close
• EU close
• AT close

Integrated multitrophic aquaculture (IMTA) is a versatile technology emerging as an ecological and sustainable solution for traditional monoculture aquacultures in terms of effluent treatment. Nevertheless, IMTA is still poorly applied in aquaculture industry due to, among other reasons, the lack of effective, low-investment and low-maintenance solutions. In this study, one has developed a practical and low maintenance IMTA-pilot system, settled in a semi-intensive coastal aquaculture. The optimisation and performance of the system was validated using Ulva spp., a macroalgae that naturally grows in the fishponds of the local aquaculture. Several cultivation experiments were performed at lab-scale and in the IMTA-pilot system, in static mode. The specific growth rate (SGR), yield, nutrient removal, N and C enrichment, protein and pigment content were monitored. Ulva spp. successfully thrived in effluent from the fish species sea bream (Sparus aurata) and sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax) production tanks and significantly reduced inorganic nutrient load in the effluent, particularly, NH4+, PO43− and NO3−. The enrichment of nitrogen in Ulva spp.’s tissues indicated nitrogen assimilation by the algae, though, the cultivated Ulva spp. showed lower amounts of protein and pigments in comparison to the wild type. This study indicates that the designed IMTA-pilot system is an efficient solution for fish effluent treatment and Ulva spp., a suitable effluent remediator.

Bioplastics are alternatives of conventional petroleum-based plastics. Bioplastics are polymers processed from renewable sources and are biodegradable. This study aims at conducting an environmental impact assessment of the bioprocessing of agricultural wastes into bioplastics compared to petro-plastics using an LCA approach. Bioplastics were produced from potato peels in laboratory. In a biochemical reaction under heating, starch was extracted from peels and glycerin, vinegar and water were added with a range of different ratios, which resulted in producing different samples of bio-based plastics. Nevertheless, the environmental impact of the bioplastics production process was evaluated and compared to petro-plastics. A life cycle analysis of bioplastics produced in laboratory and petro-plastics was conducted. The results are presented in the form of global warming potential, and other environmental impacts including acidification potential, eutrophication potential, freshwater ecotoxicity potential, human toxicity potential, and ozone layer depletion of producing bioplastics are compared to petro-plastics. The results show that the greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions, through the different experiments to produce bioplastics, range between 0.354 and 0.623 kg CO2 eq. per kg bioplastic compared to 2.37 kg CO2 eq. per kg polypropylene as a petro-plastic. The results also showed that there are no significant potential effects for the bioplastics produced from potato peels on different environmental impacts in comparison with poly-β-hydroxybutyric acid and polypropylene. Thus, the bioplastics produced from agricultural wastes can be manufactured in industrial scale to reduce the dependence on petroleum-based plastics. This in turn will mitigate GHG emissions and reduce the negative environmental impacts on climate change.

AbstractAlthough the road-map of the oxy-fuel process seems to be very advanced, there are still plenty of open questions. One of the significant ones is the corrosive behaviour of the heat exchanger surfaces. The Institute of Combustion and Power Plant Technology, University of Stuttgart, performs research on the fireside corrosion under oxy-fuel and conventional combustion conditions for the current and supercritical power plants considering the influence of combustion modus, gas atmosphere and fly ash deposits on the waterwall and superheater surfaces. Since the oxy-fuel-combustion atmosphere is composed of recirculated flue gases and pure oxygen, significantly higher concentrations of CO2, SO2 and H2O are present compared to the conventional combustion of coal with air as an oxidizer. In the here presented study the influence of an oxy-fuel combustion of a hard-coal on the surface of selected superheater materials is discussed and compared to the results obtained for lignite. Especially the interactions between the flue gas atmosphere, ash deposits and heat exchanger materials are studied in detail. The investigation encompassed in this paper has been focused on impacts of oxide-scale growth, carbon enrichment of the materials and sulphur-induced corrosion.Increased sulphur-induced corrosion has been observed in samples exposed to the oxy-combustion atmosphere. The noticed higher depth of corrosive attack of the oxy-fuel samples might be explained by a higher partial pressure of SO2 which is characteristic for oxy-fuel process. Moreover in certain cases the sulphur might be released by the deposits. Beside that, the oxy-fuel samples were exposed to much higher partial pressures of carbon dioxide comparing to the air-case leading apparently to rapid and massive internal carbon enrichment in the oxide scale. Moreover dependence between the chromium content and oxidation ability of the austenitic materials surfaces was noticed under oxy-fuel conditions.

Abstract Thermal energy storage with phase change materials (PCM) provides high storage capacities in small temperature intervals. For the design of storage systems, the enthalpy curve of the used PCM has to be known with high precision. The T-History method has evolved to a widely used method for the measurement of the enthalpy as a function of temperature of PCM because of its simplicity and the advantage to be able to investigate larger sample volumes than typically used for differential scanning calorimeters. In order to ensure isothermal specimen during the measurement a thermal insulation is often mounted around the sample holder, but this insulation material is not considered in the evaluation model. In this work a new evaluation model for insulated T-History setups is developed by an analytical heat balance. This model is validated by numerical simulations of insulated T-History measurements and experimentally. By the use of the new model for the evaluation of the enthalpy a significant increase of accuracy can be achieved.

The goal of WP3 is to develop a design framework for novel ground (slinky/earth basket) type shallow heat exchangers. This design framework, based on developing theoretical models of heat transfer and on experimental data, will be implemented in a design- and engineering calculation tool to support the implementation of these new technologies in the market. The design framework defines the goals of the (thermal and hydraulic) design (especially sizing) of the ground source heat exchanger, as a function of different boundary conditions (building energy demand, soil thermal parameters, required system performance etc.). Moreover, an engineering tool it is aimed at the overall system design and will support the engineer in the choices of heat exchanger technology (vertical, horizontal or earth basket/slinky) and other design parameterizations. This deliverable describes the overall design process and provides information and procedures for data collection and evaluation. The detailed description of the design process for different types of Ground Heat Exchangers is based on the design of the actual GHEX systems implemented in the demo sites of the Geofit project and includes vertical borehole heat exchangers, shallow slinky heat exchangers and earth basket type heat exchangers. This deliverable is suited to be implemented in a design handbook or procedure that can be part of an integrated quality control system.

In an Internet of Things (IoT), the number of interconnected devices is huge and has been increasing drastically. Their generated data requires powerful aggregated computing resources and consumes enormous energy for processing and transmission. Having said that, most IoT devices are very limited and heterogeneous in computing capabilities, causing a big challenge for designing a commonly used interconnect that is both reliable and energy-efficient. Random Linear Network Coding (RLNC) schemes have proven its capability both theoretically and in practical deployment not only to increase throughput and reliability but also to reduce latency and energy consumption. However, it is unclear how different variations of RLNC, in particular, Fulcrum codes aimed for heterogeneous devices perform in heterogeneous IoT settings. In this paper, we conduct a measurement campaign, allowing for a fair comparison among the state of the art RLNC families, with regard to energy consumption, decoding probability, and goodput. The study provides insights and guidelines for applying RLNC schemes to data transmission in heterogeneous IoT networks.

Material compiled for analysis in this paper: Ueckerdt F, Bauer C, Dirnaichner A, Everall J, Sacchi R, Luderer R (2021) Potential and risks of hydrogen-based e-fuels in climate change mitigation. Nature Climate Change. The material includes: 1) a spreadsheet file with technoeconomic data 2) an R Markdown script which is the source code for an interactive dashboard used to visualise (1) 3) a README file to assist with navigation of the data in (1) 1) The spreadsheet data contains CAPEX, efficiency and other supplementary data for small to large scale electrolysers for current, and future years. Data was collected based on a Literature Review of a variety of academic and industry sources conducted during the course of the title paper development. The data are differentiated by several categories including electrolysis method, source publication year and literature type. Care was taken to avoid recycled cost values, and to focus on the currency of the data, with values included to indicate the oldest reference year of any cited literature. 2) The R Markdown script in combination with the spreadsheet data is used as a basis for an interactive dashboard which can be run with an R installation and the supporting packages, or viewed online at https://h2.pik-potsdam.de/H2Dash/

The EMB3Rs Unified Modelling Platform is a tool to assist on modelling the recovery of excess heat and its reuse to meet final energy demand within and beyond the boundaries of industrial sites. The tool consists of a knowledge base and several simulation modules. This database comprises the research data generated in the course of the EMB3Rs project by using the EMB3Rs platform. The pdf file contains the detailed description of the database content It has been deposited at Zenodo’s open data repository with DOI 10.5281/zenodo.7994255.