• Energy Research
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AbstractA mathematical model was developed and applied to estimate an optimal installed capacity of a power plant that uses landfill gas as a fuel. Economic, technological and climate parameters are considered in the model. For benchmarking purposes the feed-in tariffs of power production from renewable energy sources, as well as price of CO2 emission allowances are used. A landfill in Latvia is taken as a case for modelling. The results show that it is possible to find the optimal capacity for various grades of landfill gas quality.

A measurement of the underlying activity in scattering processes with a hard scale in the several GeV region is performed in proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 0.9 and 7 TeV, using data collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC. The production of charged particles with pseudorapidity |eta| < 2 and transverse momentum pT > 0.5 GeV/c is studied in the azimuthal region transverse to that of the leading set of charged particles forming a track-jet. A significant growth of the average multiplicity and scalar-pT sum of the particles in the transverse region is observed with increasing pT of the leading track-jet, followed by a much slower rise above a few GeV/c. For track-jet pT larger than a few GeV/c, the activity in the transverse region is approximately doubled with a centre-of-mass energy increase from 0.9 to 7 TeV. Predictions of several QCD-inspired models as implemented in PYTHIA are compared to the data. Journal of high energy physics 2011(9), 109(2011). doi:10.1007/JHEP09(2011)109 Published by Springer, Berlin

As climate change concerns are rising rapidly, energy efficiency promotion and implementation could be sustainable solutions within energy transition. In this context, buildings, including educational ones, play an important role in reducing energy needs and promoting energy efficiency since they account for a significant share of the total energy consumption. As a case study for this research, the educational building of Kazakh-German University was selected. Following the national and international building standards, energy performance parameters were estimated. Current heat losses and performance have been estimated as baseline scenario settings. The impact of retrofitting measures on energy efficiency performance of the buildings under the four scenarios was calculated. Under the minor scenario, retrofitting interventions will lead to annual energy savings of 36.9 kWh/m2 and a 48% CO2 emission reduction, whereas under the major scenario, the annual energy savings will increase to 77.76 kWh/m2 and a nearly 82% CO2 emission reduction. The integration of a solar thermal system with capacity 400 kWh, assuming that the heat demand was reduced under the minor retrofitting scenario, can decrease heat energy consumption and CO2 emissions to 35%. As upfront costs of the energy efficiency measures are high, a carbon offset mechanism could facilitate the implementation of university building modernization.

One of the major requirements of smart textiles is to achieve the integration of an energy source for powering embedded electronic systems. In this context, textile triboelectric nanogenerators (T-TENGs) are particularly well suited to imperceptibly play this role in the core of textiles, making them highly appealing for the development of future autonomous systems. This article reviews the wide range of topics related to T-TENGs technology starting from triboelectric generation (textile device and behavior modeling) up to the complete integration of power transfer (rectifier) circuits on textiles. The modeling part deals with the current mathematical models of the triboelectric charge transfer in order to highlight efficient power transfer circuits. Then the materials and architectures used to fabricate different types of T-TENGs are described. Finally, the methods and technologies to seamlessly integrate the power transfer circuit into textiles are discussed: from realizing electrically conductive tracks through to integrating electronic component on textiles.

Abstract Polymer-based matrix composite materials are in high demand in many different fields: aeronautics, pressure vessel manufacturing, wind turbine blade manufacturing, and others. Due to the great mechanical properties of fiber reinforced plastics, it is a desirable material for various applications, but at the same time its heterogenic structure makes the composite waste hard to recycle. This paper focuses on different fiber reinforced plastics (FRP) waste recycling methods and their comparison by carrying out literature review and using multi-criteria decision making analysis (MCDA). Four polymer matrix composite waste recycling methods are compared to calculate which one has the best sustainability performance based on the chosen criteria. Analytical Hierarchy Process and TOPSIS are applied for criteria weighing and method comparison. Sensitivity analysis is used to evaluate the obtained results. It is concluded that more studies concerning different FRP waste recycling method sustainability performance need to be done, to derive more data, that would make MCDA more reliable and also other FRP waste recycling methods could be compared. Another conclusion is that different methods have different strengths which makes it hard to compare them. While FRP waste recycling is getting more broadly used, there still is a lot of work to establish wide spread effective system of FRP waste recycling that is both economically viable and gives the best results concerning recycled material quality.