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The working pair zeolite-water has very good characteristics for the heat pump application. It is non-poisonous, non-flammable and low-corrosive so that the use of a zeolite-water heat pump in the large field of domestic heating is very promising.

The growing global awareness of social and environmental issues has led investors to prioritize sustainable investments. This study examines the relationship between ten Islamic and conventional sector indices, which include stocks screened for environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors, across three energy-related fields: renewable energy, energy efficiency, and oil equipment and services. Using a quantile cross-spectral approach, this research finds a high level of long-term synchronization among all energy-related sectors and indices. However, as markets shift from bearish to bullish, the current relationship between energy-related sectors and Islamic and conventional indices weakens. To support the findings in this research and investigate potential financial implications, this investigation applies a causality-in-quantiles approach. The research in this study shows a bidirectional causal relationship between conventional and Islamic indices, particularly in the energy efficiency sector during bearish market conditions. At lower tails, ESG market indices are found to cause renewable energy products, suggesting a hedging mechanism. The findings of this study assert that investments that do not possess any ESG shortcomings are imperative for effectively bolstering renewable energy companies and fostering opportunities for energy efficiency. These conclusions hold considerable ramifications for energy policymakers as they strive to devise more robust financial mechanisms that can provide substantial support to the burgeoning green sector.

Biomethane is a flexible energy vector that can be used as a renewable fuel for both the heat and transport sectors. Recent EU legislation encourages the production and use of advanced, third generation biofuels with improved sustainability for future energy systems. The integration of technologies such as anaerobic digestion, gasification, and power to gas, along with advanced feedstocks such as algae will be at the forefront in meeting future sustainability criteria and achieving a green gas supply for the gas grid. This paper explores the relevant pathways in which an integrated biomethane industry could potentially materialise and identifies and discusses the latest biotechnological advances in the production of renewable gas. Three scenarios of cascading biomethane systems are developed.

Abstract We first describe the static thermo-mechanical loadings of some important structures due to accidental situations. We calculate the behaviour of these structures by several methods; elastic and plastic analysis, and limit design. We show the interest of this last method.

Le marquage alimentaire géographique a souvent été perçu comme une forme de protection contre les copies et, d'une manière générale, la mauvaise qualité. Ce qu'il a été en son temps. Mais on n'a jamais bien perçu, qu'en réalité, derrière ce système, ce n'était pas le passé, la "tradition", l'histoire qui étaient mis en valeur. Ce système a joué le rôle d'une forme de capitalisation des savoir-faire, formulés par le législateur, pour inscrire le produit dans la durée, autant dans le passé que dans le futur. Comment la géographie a-t-elle pu jouer ce rôle capitalistique ? Par le jeu des échelles. En agrandissant les marchés, en mondialisant les produits, la qualité a été renforcée par la rareté, l’unicité (qu'il a fallu parfois combattre, les Champenois le savent bien) et, finalement, l’inaliénabilité des produits et des mets. Ainsi, la géographie qui devait se fondre dans le temps tourbillonnant du capitalisme et du libéralisme, est-elle devenue une des marques de fabrique les plus sûres qui soient. Geographical food labeling was often perceived as a form of protection against counterfeiting and, generally speaking, lower quality. Which was the case in its time. However, it was never well understood that in reality, behind this system, it was not the past, the “tradition, the history that were emphasized. This system has played the role of a form of capitalization of know-how, as expressed by the regulator, to consider the products in the long-term perspective, as much the past than the future. How geography managed to play this capitalizing role? By the means of scales. By enlarging markets, globalizing products, it was reinforced by its scarcity, its uniqueness (which sometimes had to be fought, the Champagne producers know it well) and finally its inalienability. Thus, geography, which was to blend in the whirl of capitalism and liberalism, became one of the most trustworthy trade marks.

In the present work, an experimental study on a lab-scale adsorption refrigerator, based on activated carbon/ethanol working pair is reported. An extensive testing campaign has been carried out at the CNR ITAE laboratory, with multiple aims. First, the performance has been evaluated in terms of both COP and Specific Cooling Power (SCP), under different boundary conditions, including both air conditioning and refrigeration applications. Attractive SCPs, up to 180 W/kg and 70 W/kg for air conditioning and refrigeration, respectively, were measured. Under the same conditions, COP between 0.17 and 0.08 were obtained. In addition, different management strategies, namely, heat recovery between adsorbers and re-allocation of phase durations, were evaluated to identify their influence on the system. Both strategies confirmed the possibility of increasing COP and SCP up to 40% and 25%, respectively. Moreover, a design analysis based on the experimental results has been carried out, to suggest possible improvements of the system. The obtained results demonstrated the possibility of employing a non-toxic refrigerant like ethanol reaching performance comparable with other harmful refrigerants like ammonia and methanol.

Abstract Fruit and vegetables are stored for up to several months in large bin stacks in refrigerated rooms. Gaps between the bins and bin wall openings should allow the circulation of cooling air to remove field and respiration heat from produce. In an industrial apple store, the effects of the stacking array, fan position and number on airflow distribution in vertical gaps and inside plastic bins were investigated using stepwise reduction of fan revolution. At 100% fan power, the average air velocity in vertical gaps between bin rows in the main flow direction increased with reducing total cross section of the gaps. In contrast, the number of vertical gaps between bin rows had little effect on the average air speed between fruit inside the bins, probably due to additional flow paths in the horizontal gaps. The lowest air speed was measured when bins were stacked in one block without vertical gaps and a distance to the side walls of only 10 cm. A stacking arrangement with only one central vertical gap between four bin rows or with a large distance (> 1 m) between the wall opposite to the fans and the bins enhanced flow uniformity. Three fans situated above the vertical gaps was more effective for the ventilation of bins than four fans above the bin rows.

Abstract In the production process of pharmaceutical pellets with a narrow size distribution and a high sphericity, a combined extrusion-spheronization technique is frequently used. The rounding of the wet cylindrical extrudates in the spheronizer after the extrusion step is influenced by various interfering mechanisms, in particular plastic deformation, breakage, attrition and coalescence. Due to the complexity of these mechanisms which depend on the particle dynamics, there is no sufficient description of the particle rounding process in the spheronizer. In this study, the Discrete Element Method (DEM) which runs on the micro scale is coupled with a Particle Shape Evolution (PSE) model on the macro scale to describe how the particle shape changes due to collisions. For the DEM simulation a new contact model was used which was developed to capture the cyclic, dominant visco plastic deformation behaviour. Based on the DEM collision data, the changing particle shape was described in the PSE model by applying the proposed submodels for the different formation mechanisms. The resulting particle shapes obtained with this simulation framework are in a good agreement with experimental data.