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This work has been developed under the AGROinLOG Project, “Demonstration of innovative integrated biomass logistics centres for the Agro-industry sector in Europe”. An Integrated Biomass Logistics Center (IBLC), is based on the introduction of new production chains into existing agro-industries by using new biomass feedstock. The AGROinLOG Project has dedicated great attention to investigate the potential of cereal chaff as a valuable resource.Chaff is the fine fraction of the thrashing residues, not usually collected. Chaff is made up of glumes, seed husks, rachis and the tinner part of the cereal stems, whole and cracked kernels, as well as weed seeds.Currently there are several mechanical solutions available on the market for chaff recovery, and others are still at prototype stage, but theyare not so common and very often unknown to the farmers.So far, the literature reportsfew cases of chaff collection with the specific purpose of weed seeds removal, but it still lacks specificexperiments on these machinesintentionally used for biomass collection.For this reason, during the Project AGROinLOG a series of large field tests were performed using an independent scientific approach with different kind of chaff harvesting technologiesin France, Sweden and Italy from 2017 to 2019.The present study collects the results of these activities with the aim to fill that gap and provide deeper understanding in the possibility to enhance the current cereal harvesting method, in order to improve the quantity of biomass collected by including the chaff. Proceedings of the 29th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, 26-29 April 2021, Online, pp. 62-68

Sustainable food supply has gained considerable consumer concern due to the high percentage of spoilage microorganisms. Food industries need to expand advanced technologies that can maintain the nutritive content of foods, enhance the bio-availability of bioactive compounds, provide environmental and economic sustainability, and fulfill consumers’ requirements of sensory characteristics. Heat treatment negatively affects food samples’ nutritional and sensory properties as bioactives are sensitive to high-temperature processing. The need arises for non-thermal processes to reduce food losses, and sustainable developments in preservation, nutritional security, and food safety are crucial parameters for the upcoming era. Non-thermal processes have been successfully approved because they increase food quality, reduce water utilization, decrease emissions, improve energy efficiency, assure clean labeling, and utilize by-products from waste food. These processes include pulsed electric field (PEF), sonication, high-pressure processing (HPP), cold plasma, and pulsed light. This review describes the use of HPP in various processes for sustainable food processing. The influence of this technique on microbial, physicochemical, and nutritional properties of foods for sustainable food supply is discussed. This approach also emphasizes the limitations of this emerging technique. HPP has been successfully analyzed to meet the global requirements. A limited global food source must have a balanced approach to the raw content, water, energy, and nutrient content. HPP showed positive results in reducing microbial spoilage and, at the same time, retains the nutritional value. HPP technology meets the essential requirements for sustainable and clean labeled food production. It requires limited resources to produce nutritionally suitable foods for consumers’ health.

AbstractCurrently, Sb2Se3 thin films receive considerable research interest as a solar cell absorber material. When completed into a device stack, the major bottleneck for further device improvement is the open‐circuit voltage, which is the focus of the work presented here. Polycrystalline thin‐film Sb2Se3 absorbers and solar cells are prepared in substrate configuration and the dominant recombination path is studied using photoluminescence spectroscopy and temperature‐dependent current–voltage characteristics. It is found that a post‐deposition annealing after the CdS buffer layer deposition can effectively remove interface recombination since the activation energy of the dominant recombination path becomes equal to the bandgap of the Sb2Se3 absorber. The increased activation energy is accompanied by an increased photoluminescence yield, that is, reduced non‐radiative recombination. Finished Sb2Se3 solar cell devices reach open‐circuit voltages as high as 485 mV. Contrarily, the short‐circuit current density of these devices is limiting the efficiency after the post‐deposition annealing. It is shown that atomic layer‐deposited intermediate buffer layers such as TiO2 or Sb2S3 can pave the way for overcoming this limitation.

<p>Commonly used host rock reservoirs for Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) are composed of granite, as they display highly conductive and sustainable fracture networks after stimulation. However, considering the large amount of metamorphic rocks in Europe’s underground, these rock types may also show a large potential to extract geothermal energy from the subsurface. Within the framework of the European Union’s Horizon 2020 initiative ‘MEET (Multi-Sites EGS Demonstration)’, we are conducting fracture permeability experiments at elevated confining pressures, p<sub>c</sub>, temperatures, T, and differential stresses, </p>

This paper presents the application of isogeometric analysis (IGA) to the spatial discretisation of the multi-group, self-adjoint angular flux (SAAF) form of the neutron transport equation with a discrete ordinate (SN) angular discretisation. The IGA spatial discretisation is based upon non-uniform rational B-spline (NURBS) basis functions for both the test and trial functions. In addition a source iteration compatible maximum principle is used to derive the IGA spatially discretised SAAF equation. It is demonstrated that this maximum principle is mathematically equivalent to the weak form of the SAAF equation. The rate of convergence of the IGA spatial discretisation of the SAAF equation is analysed using a method of manufactured solutions (MMS) verification test case. The results of several nuclear reactor physics verification benchmark test cases are analysed. This analysis demonstrates that for higher-order basis functions, and for the same number of degrees of freedom, the FE based spatial discretisation methods are numerically less accurate than IGA methods. The difference in numerical accuracy between the IGA and FE methods is shown to be because of the higher-order continuity of NURBS basis functions within a NURBS patch as well as the preservation of both the volume and surface area throughout the solution domain within the IGA spatial discretisation. Finally, the numerical results of applying the IGA SAAF method to the OECD/NEA, seven-group, two-dimensional C5G7 quarter core nuclear reactor physics verification benchmark test case are presented. The results, from this verification benchmark test case, are shown to be in good agreement with solutions of the first-order form as well as the second-order even-parity form of the neutron transport equation for the same order of discrete ordinate (SN) angular approximation. Funding was provided by the following grants: EPSRC impact acceleration award grant reference number: EP/R511547/1, Adaptive Hierarchical Radiation Transport Methods to Meet Future Challenges in Reactor Physics (EPSRC Grant No.: EP/ J002011/1), RADIANT: A Parallel, Scalable, High Performance Radiation Transport Modelling and Simulation Framework for Reactor Physics, Nuclear Criticality Safety Assessment and Radiation Shielding Analyses (EPSRC Grant No.: EP/K503733/1)

AbstractImproving the long-term stability of perovskite solar cells is critical to the deployment of this technology. Despite the great emphasis laid on stability-related investigations, publications lack consistency in experimental procedures and parameters reported. It is therefore challenging to reproduce and compare results and thereby develop a deep understanding of degradation mechanisms. Here, we report a consensus between researchers in the field on procedures for testing perovskite solar cell stability, which are based on the International Summit on Organic Photovoltaic Stability (ISOS) protocols. We propose additional procedures to account for properties specific to PSCs such as ion redistribution under electric fields, reversible degradation and to distinguish ambient-induced degradation from other stress factors. These protocols are not intended as a replacement of the existing qualification standards, but rather they aim to unify the stability assessment and to understand failure modes. Finally, we identify key procedural information which we suggest reporting in publications to improve reproducibility and enable large data set analysis.