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A commercial drum chipper was fed alternately and piecewise with poplar stems and poplar tops, in order to determine the effect of piece size and tree part on machine performance. Chipping stems required most of the available power (231 kW) delivered by the tractor, whereas chipping tops took about half that much. However, productivity was twice as high with stems, compared to tops (i.e. 25 and 11 t h-1 of oven dry wood, respectively). As a consequence, specific fuel consumption per unit product was 15% lower with stems, compared to tops - i.e. 0.61 and 0.72 L m-3, respectively. Mean feeding speed was 0.37 m s-1 for stems and 0.41 m s-1 for tops, but the difference was not significant (p = 0.1677). Productivity and fuel consumption were strongly related to piece size, but tree part had its own additional effect, independent from size and possibly related to form. When chipping tops it is advisable to feed more pieces at a time, in order to partly compensate for the effect of piece size. Operators expecting to chip primarily small-size materials may acquire special chipper versions with wider drums and additional side rollers, for smoother mass feeding. oThe same chipper was tested with poplar stems and tops.oChipping stems resulted in higher productivity and lower fuel consumption.oChipping stems required most of the available tractor power.oChip particle size distribution was about the same for both feedstocks. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd.

We report the properties of a shape-persistent tetra-terpyridine ligand whose coordination to transition metal ions guides its three-dimensional self-assembly in two steps: at first, nanoscale objects form, which with time, self-assemble into micrometer structures. This work highlights the potential for control of the molecular self-assembly of molecules on the nanoscale, and the successive self-assembly of the formed supramolecular nanosystems to yield mesoscopic objects.

Nell'ambito del contratto ENI-CNR n° 3500049202 è stata definita e realizzata un'attività di sperimentazione di motori FPT, installati su mezzi Trenitalia, alimentati con ENI Diesel+. Le prove sono state eseguite presso le sale prova motori dell'Officina Grandi Riparazioni (OMC) Trenitalia di Rimini nei mesi di Giugno 2019 ed Ottobre 2020. Le emissioni ed i consumi di due motori alimentati con ENI Diesel+ sono state comparate con quelle ottenute utilizzando un gasolio rappresentativo della rete di distribuzione italiana. La presente relazione descrive la strumentazione impiegata, la metodologia ed i risultati delle prove

In the recent years, some experimental forms of housing (cohousing and social housing) have developed in Italy, which also take on the features of real energy communities. These initiatives have been planned and implemented thanks to the active participation and investments of the people involved in the project. Their primary aim is to implement new form of shared housing, but by adopting renewable generation systems and sharing both energy production and consumption, they are contributing to foster the energy transition process. In this research, we studied the management of the energy resource and the social interactions among the cohousers. Moreover, we analysed the social impacts on the surrounding territory in order to know as they can widespread the clean energy technologies and social innovation processes. To do this, we compared two experiences of collaborative housing: the first one, active since some years in Northern Italy, is a bottom-up initiative set up by the voluntary action of some families and individuals. Its goal is to share common spaces and activities, but also to produce and use renewable energy with a view to economic and environmental sustainability. The second one is a social cohousing, established in Messina (Southern Italy) and implemented by the Fondazione di Comunità di Messina. The project involves people who live in socio-economic difficulties. Through the ESCO Solidarity & Energy, the Fondazione has designed and applied energy systems to allow the tenants to become prosumers and prosumagers.

Artículos en revistas Hybrid microgrids are expected to play an important role in the expansion of access to electricity in developing countries. While most of these systems are operated with dispatch strategies which do not make use of predictions about the load or about the availability of renewable energy resources, forecast-based strategies have recently gained attention as an alternative to bring down operation costs. In this work, we develop a framework to assess this potential under a range of assumptions about the quality of load and photovoltaic generation forecasts. The application of the methodology to a village of 600 households reveals cost savings ranging between 2% and 7% depending on the forecast quality and the composition of the microgrid. We also show that sizing microgrid components under the assumption of a predictive operation strategy results in a design with a higher share of intermittent generation. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Il Volume, in cui il Capitolo fa parte, è stato prodotto e pubblicato con il supporto dell'Accademia dei Georgofili di Firenze e del MiPAAF (Ministero Politiche Agricole, Alimentari e Forestali).

In Italy, olive tree groves may offer up to a million tonnes of dry biomass per year as pruning residue. Searching for a cost-effective way to tap this potential, the authors tested a new machine, capable of recovering pruning residue at the same time as pruning. The pre-commercial prototype was tested on four different plots and compared to a simpler tractorbase mechanical pruning unit. The authors conducted detailed time-studies in order to determine machine productivity and residue recovery cost. The integrated machine can treat between 0.2 and 0.6 ha h(-1), producing between 0.33 and 1.03 tonnes of fresh residue hour(-1). Its integrated residue recovery function does not slow the pruning, which actually proceeds faster than with the tractor-base unit, due to the more efficient multiple-disc cutting bar. The marginal cost of residue recovery hovers around 40-45 (sic) fresh tonne(-1). However, the new machine must not be considered just as a biomass harvester, but rather as a mechanical pruning unit with an integrated biomass recovery function. Its main benefit derives from the capacity of performing a very effective mechanical pruning, and the residue recovery function is a secondary benefit yet unavailable on standard pruning machines. Its deployment must be seen in the context of a general effort to modernize olive grove management and to develop an integrated biomass production system, rather than as a further attempt to build a specialised biomass supply chain.

Latent thermal energy storage systems represent a promising alternative to traditional sensible storages, but their exploitation requires a careful design of the system. The present paper reports a mathematical model for the simulation of thermal energy storage systems with phase change materials (PCMs). The model is suitable for the description of a latent heat storage using a fin-and-tube heat exchanger. Accuracy and computational effort are both taken into consideration, by coupling a 1D model for the tubes of the heat exchanger and a reduced 3D model for the material and fin domains. The developed model has been validated for two systems, realised at ITAE and ISE, differing for the PCM employed and the constructive characteristics of the heat exchanger. Results show that the model has a good accuracy and could predict the behaviour of the storages within 40 W error in case of powers and 1 K in case of heat transfer fluid temperatures. When a stable PCM was used, the average deviation between the PCM temperature in experiments and simulation was lower than 0.6 K.

Species distribution models (SDMs) provide realistic scenarios to explain the influence of bioclimatic variables on plant pathogen distribution. Diplodia sapinea is most harmful to plantations of both exotic and native pine species in Italy, causing economic consequences expecially to edible seed production. In this study, we developed maximum entropy models for D. sapinea in Italy to reach the following goals: (i) to carry out the pathogen's first geographical distribution analysis in Italy and determine which ecogeographical variables (EGVs) may influence its outbreaks; (ii) to detect the effect of climate change on the potential occurrence of disease outbreaks by 2050 and 2070. We used Maxent ver. 3.4.0 to develop SDMs. We used six global climate models (BCC-CSM1-1, CCSM4, GISS-E2-R, MIROC5, HadGEM2-ES and MPI-ESM-LR) for two representative concentration pathways (4.5 and 8.5) and two time projections (2050 and 2070) to detect future climate projections of D. sapinea. The most important EGVs influencing outbreaks were land cover, altitude, mean temperature of driest and wettest quarter, precipitation of wettest quarter, precipitation seasonality and minimum temperature of coldest month. The distribution of D. sapinea mostly expanded in central and southern Italy and shifted in altitude upwards on average by ca. 93m a.s.l. Moreover the fungus expanded the range where disease outbreaks may be recorded in response to an increase in the mean temperature of wettest and driest quarter by ca. 1.9 C and 5.8 C, respectively in all climate change scenarios. Precipitation of wettest quarter did not differ between current and any of future models. Under different climate change scenarios D. sapinea's disease outbreaks will be likely to affect larger areas of pine forests in the country, probably causing heavy effects on the dynamics and evolution of these stands or perhaps constraining their survival.