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It is widely known that fossil fuels are limited; consequently, the generation of new sources of energy in a clean and environmentally friendly manner is a research priority. Bioethanol appears to be one potential solution, especially second-generation production from renewable biomass.In order to use lignocellulosic feedstock to produce bioethanol, its polysaccharide components, cellulose and hemicellulose, must be hydrolysed into soluble sugars, which can then be converted into ethanol by fermentative microorganisms such as Geobacillus thermoglucosidasius TM242 used by the company ReBio Technologies Ltd.To date, the cost of commercial enzymes used during the hydrolysis process remains a major economic consideration in the production of second-generation bioethanol as an alternative fuel. The research project presented in this thesis aims to improve this rate-limiting step of microbial bioethanol production through an investigation of the different enzymes associated with hemicellulose hydrolysis. Firstly, the TM242 genome sequence revealed a number of genes encoding glycoside-hydrolases. Six of these genes were cloned and expressed in E. coli and the recombinant enzymes characterised; three of them, two β-xylosidases and an α arabinofuranosidase, are relevant to xylan hydrolysis, and were found to be highly active and thermostable. Crystallisation of one of the β-xylosidases permitted the determination of a high-resolution (1.7 Å) structure of the apo-enzyme along with a lower resolution (2.6 Å) structure of the enzyme-substrate complex, resulting in the first reported structure of a GH52 family member (Espina et al., 2014).Secondly, as the TM242 microorganism lacks xylanase enzymes, four genes encoding xylanases from closely-related Geobacillus strains were cloned and expressed in E. coli, with one of them being also successfully cloned and expressed in G. thermoglucosidasius TM242. This heterologous xylanase was secreted in active form representing an enhanced biomass utilisation by TM242.In conclusion, it is felt that the findings presented here have the potential to make a valuable contribution towards second-generation bioethanol production.

II ABSTRACT Climate change is expected due to the increasing atmospheric concentrations of carbondioxide and other trace gasses, which lead to changes in the radioactive balance of the atmosphere. Such changes propagate further to those in temperature i and other climatic variables. Hydrologic systems and water resources are likely to be seriously impacted by global climate change. Such processes as surface runoff, precipitation, soil moisture, groundwater, water quality, and sea levels will be significantly exposed to effects of climate change. Eventually, these effects will have to be considered in water resources planning and management. The study presented stems from the above needs and addresses the problem of climate change-water resources interactions. It is intended here to investigate the possible effects of climate change on watershed scale hydrologic processes and water demand. Within this context, the current methods used in developed countries are applied to the case of the Gediz River Basin, and possible impacts of changes in climatic variables, i.e., precipitation and temperature, are investigated as they relate to runoff The results of the study should not considered as exact values to represent the effects of climate change. They are essentially `estimates` on `likely` effects of an expected climate change. However, the results also show that, if the prescribed climate change scenarios do occur in the future, they will have significant effects on the hydrology of the basin which, in turn, affects water demand for various water resources development plans. Accordingly, the study presented should be considered as an initial step towards assessment of climate change impacts and should be reaccomplished in future attempts towards any planning or management activity in the basin. ÖZET İklim değişikliği, atmosferdeki karbondioksit (CO2) ve diğer antropojen sera gazı konsantrasyonlarının giderek artması sonucu beklenmektedir. İklim değişikliğinin sonucunda beklenen en önemli olgu, sıcaklık, yağış, evapotranspirasyon, akış gibi temel iklimsel ve hidrolojik değişkenlerdeki muhtemel değişimlerdir. Bu etkilerin su kaynakları planlama ve yönetiminde değerlendirilmesi gerekmektedir. Sunulan çalışma, iklim değişikliğinin su kaynakları ile olan ilişkisini incelemektedir. Bu değişimlerden hidrolojik çevrimin ve su kaynaklarının gerek miktarı ve gerekse kalitesinin de etkilenmesi beklenmektedir. Dolayısıyla, küresel iklim değişikliğinin havza su dengesine ve su kaynaklarının planlama ve yönetimine de yansıması söz konusudur. Bu kapsamda sunulan çalışmada alt havza bazında sıcaklık ve yağış gibi iklim parametrelerinin, akıma olan etkileri incelenmiş ve duyarlılık analizi ile sonuçlar değerlendirilmiştir. 75

This paper discusses activities and results of the REBAF project: a two-year Italian regional research project focused on the energy conversion of biomass residues from river, canals and basins maintenance activities. Innovative pathways for the exploitation of grass and woodsy biomasses were investigated. Gasification and pyrolysis are the key technologies for biomass conversion into energy. Woodsy biomass was tested as fuel in a small scale commercial gasification power plants that produce heat and power using a IC engine. A valuable by-product of the process was biochar. This was tested as soil improver in giant reed crop parcels and a sensible increase of dry biomass production was achieved in comparison with control parcels. The grass residues obtained from canals maintenance were carbonized in lab-scale pyrolyzer at a temperature of about 450 °C through the hot exhaust of the engine fueled by the gasifier. The pyrolysis gases were used directly in the gasifier in substitution of the gasifying agent. The residual carbon afterward the pyrolysis process was used as filler in cements, plasters and polyurethane panels increasing performance of these building materials. Proceedings of the 27th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, 27-30 May 2019, Lisbon, Portugal, pp. 50-56

Weather and climate extremes such its droughts and floods have far reaching impacts in Kenya. They have had implications on a variety of sectors including, agriculture, water resources, health, energy and disaster management among others. Lake Victoria and its catchment support millions of people and any impact onl its ability to support the livelihood of the communities in this region is of major concern. Thus, the main objective of this study was to assess the potential future climatic changes in the Nzoia catchment in the Lake Victoria basin and how they might affect streamflow The Soil and Water Assessment Tool was used to investigate the impact of climatic change on streamflow of the study area. The model was set up using readily available spatial and temporal data and calibrated against measured daily streamflow. Climate change. scenarios were obtained from general circulation models Results obtained showed increased amounts of annual rainfall for all the scenarios but with variations on a monthly basis. All - but 1 - global circulation models (GCMS) showed consistency in the monthly rainfall amounts. The analysis revealed important rainfall-runoff linear relationships for certain months that could be extrapolated to estimate amounts of streamflow under various scenarios of change in rainfall. Streamflow response was not sensitive to changes in temperature. If all other variables e.g. land cover, population growth etc, were held constant. a significant increase in streamflow may be expected in the coming decades as a consequence of increased rainfall amounts.

This study is a follow-up on the the implementation of a business model, which was created in a co-creation process between two universities and an established SME specialized in monitoring municipal and industrial water distribution systems.. A shared collaboration sustainability innovation project between two universities and SME company on research, development and innovation context results was analyzed. A product was innovated for water systems monitoring service's needs and generated from two universities and SMEs shared RDI pilot. Authors elaborate findings for commercialization possibilities success factors and challenges for the co-creation concept. Evaluation criteria used are implementation feasibility and environmental & economical value. InTo tool is utilized for after commercialization phase to evaluate business model in this case study. Literature review focuses on collaboration enhanced sustainability innovations, which is used as comparison frame. Authors suggest efficient actions for collaborative innovation and hurdles to stay away for smooth environmental area innovation commercialization.

The gasification of fresh herbage (grass) in supercritical water has been optimized in a lab­scale apparatus and then has been tested in the pilot­plant scale. A high gasification yield is possible. The product gas consists of hydrogen, methane and some short chain hydrocarbons. The pretreatment of fresh herbage is complex. Sand should be removed by washing, size reduction with cutting devices and dilution to less than 10 wt. % DM. An enzymatic treatment at elevated temperatures for 24 h is useful for the subsequent gasification. Optimized process conditions are temperature of 650 °C, pressure of 28 MPa and mean residence time of 2 – 4 min; the resulting gasification yield of 98 % is high, also the hydrogen concentration. CO2 can be removed by a water scrubber at a pressure of 10 – 20 MPa. Due to technical boundaries the reaction temperature in the pilot­plant experiments was lower and consequently the gasification yield was lower. Proceedings of the 18th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, 3-7 May 2010, Lyon, France, pp. 562-566

Soils give rise to many environmental problems, such as heavy metals pollutant that reduces water resources, leading to serious health problems for humans directly or indirectly, by the contamination of the food crops. Moreover, the cultivation of industrial crops in heavy metals contaminated land improves several ecosystem services, such as biodiversity maintenance and nutrient and water cycling, while promoting soil decontamination through a phytoremediation technique. This biological technique uses plants to remediate the contaminated land while generating economic value in land that used to be unproductivity. However, industrial crop selection is crucial for good results of phytoremediation. In this way, hemp appears suitable for heavy metals contaminated soil. It is possible to obtain high-quality cellulose (stems), oil, and hemp proteins when using different varieties. Still, it requires special attention for several physiological features, crop management, and site-specific selection of genotypes. This work aimed to evaluate the tolerance of two genotypes of industrial hemp (Futura 75 and Kc Dora) in soils contaminated by three heavy metals (Ni, Cd, Pb). The results confirm the possibility to use hemp as possible crops for phytoremediation. Moreover the difference observed among the two studied genotypes suggest the possibility to investigate others genotypes. Proceedings of the 30th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, 9-12 May 2022, Online, pp. 178-182

In the presented paper we have investigated how large quantities of excess yeast and periodical releases of waste ethanol influence the operation of the anaerobic treatment process in a UASB reactor. The process was tested in a pilot-scale reactor with a design organic load of 16.0 kg/m3/day of COD. Through various stages of the experiment, several possible scenarios were tested, excess yeast was added continuously with concentrations up to 3 vol. %, whereas waste ethanol was added in batches of up to 0.8 % of daily volume load several days a week. The intent was to test real conditions in the treatment process. The whole experiment lasted for 77 days, where the maximum organic load of 24.72 kg/m3/day was successfully achieved with no adverse effects on the efficiency of the reactor performance although it significantly surpassed the design load. The COD efficiency at maximum OLR was 83.1 %, whereas the average was 88.0 %. The average biogas production rate increased from 2,044 m3/m3/day to 4.927 m3/m3/day. The microbial community structure analysis showed significant shifts only in the archaeal community (25 – 30 %) as a good adaptation to the addition of substrates. Monitoring the model brewery in applying the addition of yeast and ethanol to the wastewater treatment showed a 110 % increase in biomethane production. The consequence of the increased biomethane production is that the natural gas substitute ratio could be increased from the current average of 10.7 % to potentially 20.1 %, which is a substantial step towards the goal of renewable energy use.

Accordingly to The United Nations World Water Development Report 2018 "Nature-based solutions (NBS) are inspired and supported by nature and use, or mimic, natural processes to contribute to the improved management of water". In general, if NBS are incorporated in a multipurpose green infrastructure, the network can perform better or equally to a grey alternative. Designed and inspired in processes that occur in natural wetlands, constructed wetlands are good examples of cost-effective NBS for water treatment (e.g., domestic, industrial, water runoff), providing adequate water quality suitable for a range of non-potable uses, including irrigation. This is based mainly on functions played by their components, including plants, microbial populations and the growing substrate. They are valuable biotopes representing highly productive ecosystems, dependent on the climate zone and type of plant species used. Also, they are multifunctional systems that besides water treatment provide a series of ecosystem services at the level of provisioning, regulatiing, supporting and cultural. Constructed wetlands are usually considered within decentralized approaches for water treatment, for example houses with limited access to a sewage network, small populations, runoff schemes or industrial application, although they may have a significant relevance to the New Urban Agenda (NUA), as they can contribute to water availability, water quality and flood reduction, augmenting resilience, both locally and at larger scales. They also have a great potential to contribute to water quality-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). With the present chapter authors intent to give an overview of the functions of constructed wetlands as NBS, emphasising their vegetation and associated microorganisms.