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The present work aimed at the standardization of transesterification process parameters for the production of methyl ester of filtered neem oil and fuel characterization for engine performance. The effect of process parameters such as molar ratio, preheating temperature, catalyst concentration and reaction time was studied to standardize the transesterification process for estimating the highest recovery of ester with lowest possible viscosity. Based on the observations of the ester recovery and kinematic viscosity, it was found that filtered neem oil at 6:1 M ratio (methanol to oil) preheated at 55 °C temperature and maintaining 60 °C reaction temperature for 60 min in the presence of 2 percent KOH and then allowed to settle for 24 h in order to get lowest kinematic viscosity (2.7 cSt) with ester recovery (83.36%). Different fuel properties of the neem methyl ester and neem oil were also measured. Results show that the methyl ester of neem obtained under the optimum condition is an excellent substitute for fossil fuels.

Bioplastics are alternatives of conventional petroleum-based plastics. Bioplastics are polymers processed from renewable sources and are biodegradable. This study aims at conducting an environmental impact assessment of the bioprocessing of agricultural wastes into bioplastics compared to petro-plastics using an LCA approach. Bioplastics were produced from potato peels in laboratory. In a biochemical reaction under heating, starch was extracted from peels and glycerin, vinegar and water were added with a range of different ratios, which resulted in producing different samples of bio-based plastics. Nevertheless, the environmental impact of the bioplastics production process was evaluated and compared to petro-plastics. A life cycle analysis of bioplastics produced in laboratory and petro-plastics was conducted. The results are presented in the form of global warming potential, and other environmental impacts including acidification potential, eutrophication potential, freshwater ecotoxicity potential, human toxicity potential, and ozone layer depletion of producing bioplastics are compared to petro-plastics. The results show that the greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions, through the different experiments to produce bioplastics, range between 0.354 and 0.623 kg CO2 eq. per kg bioplastic compared to 2.37 kg CO2 eq. per kg polypropylene as a petro-plastic. The results also showed that there are no significant potential effects for the bioplastics produced from potato peels on different environmental impacts in comparison with poly-β-hydroxybutyric acid and polypropylene. Thus, the bioplastics produced from agricultural wastes can be manufactured in industrial scale to reduce the dependence on petroleum-based plastics. This in turn will mitigate GHG emissions and reduce the negative environmental impacts on climate change.

Solid concentration is considered as one of the most important parameters governing the anaerobic digestion process. In this present study, four solid concentration levels (10%, 15%, 20% and 25% of...

This paper presents the performance analysis of different types of energy-efficient lamps used in indoor lighting applications. The objectives of this paper is to investigate and compare the electrical power quality and different photometrical parameters of few energy efficient lamps widely used in indoor applications now-a-days i.e. Fluorescent Tube Lights (FTLs), Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs) and white Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs). These energy efficient lamps produce high total harmonic distortion but operate at high power factor. Few samples of commercial energy saving lamps are tested with different combinations of control gears and their performances are compared. The electrical and photometrical parameters are presented to verify the effectiveness of the lamp-ballast combinations. The result shows that although these lamps provide higher luminous efficacy, higher illumination but also high level of THD. The result also shows that the performance of these lamps do not change significantly with the change of normal commercial available control gears.

Biogas is a viable alternative for supplying clean and sustainable energy. Despite all manner of policy measures introduced by the Government of India, biogas is not widely used in India. This article tries to identify factors that influence the decision to adopt biogas at household level. We examine a conceptual framework empirically in which a household wants to maximize utility from biogas by using the India Human Development Survey (IHDS) I, which is a nationally representative, multi-topic survey. By applying both maximum likelihood and penalized likelihood methods (Firthlogit) of logistic regression on a sample size of almost 10,384 households, it has been found that wealthy people are more likely to adopt biogas compared to the marginalized section of the society. We recommend more inclusive policy measures for the weaker section of the society to create an enabling environment to make it a self-promoting technology.

AbstractAlthough the road-map of the oxy-fuel process seems to be very advanced, there are still plenty of open questions. One of the significant ones is the corrosive behaviour of the heat exchanger surfaces. The Institute of Combustion and Power Plant Technology, University of Stuttgart, performs research on the fireside corrosion under oxy-fuel and conventional combustion conditions for the current and supercritical power plants considering the influence of combustion modus, gas atmosphere and fly ash deposits on the waterwall and superheater surfaces. Since the oxy-fuel-combustion atmosphere is composed of recirculated flue gases and pure oxygen, significantly higher concentrations of CO2, SO2 and H2O are present compared to the conventional combustion of coal with air as an oxidizer. In the here presented study the influence of an oxy-fuel combustion of a hard-coal on the surface of selected superheater materials is discussed and compared to the results obtained for lignite. Especially the interactions between the flue gas atmosphere, ash deposits and heat exchanger materials are studied in detail. The investigation encompassed in this paper has been focused on impacts of oxide-scale growth, carbon enrichment of the materials and sulphur-induced corrosion.Increased sulphur-induced corrosion has been observed in samples exposed to the oxy-combustion atmosphere. The noticed higher depth of corrosive attack of the oxy-fuel samples might be explained by a higher partial pressure of SO2 which is characteristic for oxy-fuel process. Moreover in certain cases the sulphur might be released by the deposits. Beside that, the oxy-fuel samples were exposed to much higher partial pressures of carbon dioxide comparing to the air-case leading apparently to rapid and massive internal carbon enrichment in the oxide scale. Moreover dependence between the chromium content and oxidation ability of the austenitic materials surfaces was noticed under oxy-fuel conditions.

Abstract Thermal energy storage with phase change materials (PCM) provides high storage capacities in small temperature intervals. For the design of storage systems, the enthalpy curve of the used PCM has to be known with high precision. The T-History method has evolved to a widely used method for the measurement of the enthalpy as a function of temperature of PCM because of its simplicity and the advantage to be able to investigate larger sample volumes than typically used for differential scanning calorimeters. In order to ensure isothermal specimen during the measurement a thermal insulation is often mounted around the sample holder, but this insulation material is not considered in the evaluation model. In this work a new evaluation model for insulated T-History setups is developed by an analytical heat balance. This model is validated by numerical simulations of insulated T-History measurements and experimentally. By the use of the new model for the evaluation of the enthalpy a significant increase of accuracy can be achieved.

This chapter focuses on the evaluation of adaptive capacities of community-level human systems related to agriculture and food security. It highlights findings regarding approaches and domains to monitor and evaluate behavioral changes from CGIAR’s research program on climate change, agriculture and food security (CCAFS). This program, implemented in five West African countries, is intended to enhance adaptive capacities in agriculture management of natural resources and food systems. In support of participatory action research on climate-smart agriculture, a monitoring and evaluation plan was designed with the participation of all stakeholders to track changes in behavior of the participating community members. Individuals’ and groups’ stories of changes were collected using most significant change tools. The collected stories of changes were substantiated through field visits and triangulation techniques. Frequencies of the occurrence of characteristics of behavioral changes in the stories were estimated. The results show that smallholder farmers in the intervention areas adopted various characteristics of behavior change grouped into five domains: knowledge, practices, access to assets, partnership and organization. These characteristics can help efforts to construct quantitative indicators of climate change adaptation at local level. Further, the results suggest that application of behavioral change theories can facilitate the development of climate change adaptation indicators that are complementary to indicators of development outcomes. We conclude that collecting stories on behavioral changes can contribute to biophysical adaptation monitoring and evaluation.

In an Internet of Things (IoT), the number of interconnected devices is huge and has been increasing drastically. Their generated data requires powerful aggregated computing resources and consumes enormous energy for processing and transmission. Having said that, most IoT devices are very limited and heterogeneous in computing capabilities, causing a big challenge for designing a commonly used interconnect that is both reliable and energy-efficient. Random Linear Network Coding (RLNC) schemes have proven its capability both theoretically and in practical deployment not only to increase throughput and reliability but also to reduce latency and energy consumption. However, it is unclear how different variations of RLNC, in particular, Fulcrum codes aimed for heterogeneous devices perform in heterogeneous IoT settings. In this paper, we conduct a measurement campaign, allowing for a fair comparison among the state of the art RLNC families, with regard to energy consumption, decoding probability, and goodput. The study provides insights and guidelines for applying RLNC schemes to data transmission in heterogeneous IoT networks.