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The large potential for waste resource and heat recovery in industry has been motivating research toward increasing efficiency. Process integration methods have proven to be effective tools in improving industrial sites while decreasing their resource and energy consumption; however, location aspects and their impact are generally overlooked. This paper presents a method based on process integration, which considers the location of plants. The impact of the locations is included within the mixed integer linear programming framework in the form of heat losses, temperature and pressure drop, and piping cost. The objective function is selected as minimisation of the total cost of the system excluding piping cost and ϵ -constraints are applied on the piping cost to systematically generate multiple solutions. The method is applied to a case study with industrial plants from different sectors. First, the interaction between two plants and their utility integration are illustrated, depending on the piping cost limit which results in the heat pump and boiler on one site being gradually replaced by excess heat recovered from the other plant. Then, the optimisation of the whole system is carried out, as a large-scale application. At low piping cost allowances, heat is shared through high pressure steam in above-ground pipes, while at higher piping cost limits the system switches toward lower pressure steam sharing in underground pipes. Compared to the business-as-usual operation of the sites, the optimal solution obtained with the proposed method leads to 20% reduction in the overall cost of the system, including the piping cost. Further reduction in the cost is possible using a state of the art method but the technical and economic feasibility is not guaranteed. Thus, the present work provides a tool to find optimal industrial symbiosis solutions under different investment limits on the infrastructure between plants.

Renewable energies will represent an increasing share of the electricity supply, while flue and gasification-derived gases can be a promising CO2 feedstock with a heat load. In this study, microbial electrosynthesis of organic compounds from CO2 at high temperature was proposed as an alternative for valorising energy surplus and decarbonizing the economy. The unremitting fluctuation of renewable energy sources was assessed using two bioreactors at 50 °C, under circumstances of continuous and intermittent power supply (ON-OFF; 8-16 h), simulating an off-grid photovoltaic system. Results highlighted that maximum acetate production rate (43.27 g m-2 d-1) and columbic efficiency (98%) were achieved by working with an intermittent energy supply, while current density was reduced three times. This boosted the production of acetate per unit of electricity provided up to 138 g kWh-1 and reinforced the robustness of the technology by showing resilience to tolerate perturbations and returning to its initial state.

Miniaturization of electrochemical detection ofPseudomonas aeruginosaquorum sensing molecules at a liquid/liquid interface through facilitated proton transfer reactions.

Increasing material use efficiency is important to mitigate future supply risks and minimize environmental impacts associated with the production of the materials. The policy mix presented in this paper aims to contribute to reducing the use of virgin metals in the EU by 80% by 2050 without significant shifting of burdens to other material resources, environmental impacts, or parts of the world. We used a heuristic framework and a systems perspective for designing the policy mix that combines primary instruments designed to increase material efficiency, recycling and substitution of materials (a materials tax, the extended producer responsibility, technical regulations, and environmental taxes) and supportive instruments aimed to reduce barriers to implementing the primary instruments and to contribute towards the policy objectives (e.g., research and development support, and advanced recycling centers). Furthermore, instruments were designed so as to increase political feasibility: e.g., taxes were gradually increased as part of a green fiscal reform, and border-tax adjustments were introduced to reduce impacts on competitiveness. However, even in such a policy mix design ongoing ex-ante assessments indicate that the policy mix will be politically difficult to implement—and also fall short of achieving the 80% reduction target. Nonetheless, we suggest combining primary and supportive instruments into coherent and dynamic policy mixes as a promising step towards system reconfigurations for sustainability.

Technical and economic developments in battery and fast-charging technologies could soon make fuel cell electric vehicles, which run on hydrogen, superfluous in road transport

Abstract Integrating low-carbon technologies (e.g. heat pumps, photovoltaic systems) in buildings influences the stability of the low-voltage grid, which therefore often requires to be reinforced. This article proposes a techno-economic methodology to identify the reinforcements needed to maintain grid stability at the lowest life-cycle cost. Novel contributions include the consideration of three-phase connection of low-carbon technologies as a reinforcement option and the fact that we study to what extent grid reinforcements can mitigate voltage unbalance issues. Additionally, to reduce computing time, a dummy island approach is used, whereby one feeder is modelled in detail and the remainder of the distribution island is represented by an aggregated load. Finally, random repetitions are proposed, to consider uncertainties related to building properties, occupants and the location of low-carbon technologies in the feeders. The methodology is applied to investigate the integration of heat pumps and photovoltaic systems in typical Belgian rural and urban grids. For the rural grid, heat pumps may lead to significant reinforcement costs (up to 1230 €/dwelling), mainly due to voltage stability problems. For the urban grid, heat pump and photovoltaic integration causes low reinforcement cost (

The biotechnological development has traditionally focused on the compliance with regulatory demands rather than optimising the processes or analysing their sustainability. This work proposes the combination of available tools for the comprehensive sustainability assessment of a blue biotechnology process based on the cultivation of the microalgae Haematococcus pluvialis. The work aims to include environmental, economic and social dimensions to measure the sustainability of the production of a carotenoid with potential applications in food, nutraceutical, cosmetics and eventually pharmaceutical industries. Electricity for cultivation was identified as the major contributor to the environmental impacts, which depended significantly on the production scale. Social benefits were mainly related to workers and consumers, while the economic assessment suggested a profitable process with a relatively short period to recover the initial investment.