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Significance of eco-friendly materials based on easily renewable natural resources, and the finite nature of petrochemical resources, has necessitated the development of polymers from agricultural processing by products such as soy proteins from oil processing. Although, considerable work was done in the early part of last century on polymers based on soy protein, there was almost no activity in t
The dedicated production of biomass crops and the collection of residues in agriculture and forestry can lead to undesirable negative impacts and it is crucial that practices are found that ensure that these impacts are avoided or mitigated as far as possible. This chapter concerns the use of biomass for energy and the connection between increased bioenergy use and land use change (LUC). Land use
Ocean thermal energy refers to the thermal potential energy produced by the temperature difference between the warm surface seawater and the cold deep seawater. In this paper, a siphon flash evaporation desalination system using ocean thermal energy is proposed. Because it can utilize the ocean thermal energy directly for desalination, siphon flash evaporation desalination system has relatively hi
The paper examines energy consumption in Britain, Germany and Czechoslovakia over 130 years, including both traditional and modern energy carriers. The article is based on new series of energy consumption for Czechoslovakia that includes traditional energy sources, and, which is compared to energy use in other coal-rich countries in Europe: Germany and Britain. Changes in energy consumption are de
Pretreatments are crucial to achieve efficient conversion of lignocellulosic biomass to soluble sugars. In this light, switchgrass was subjected to 13 pretreatments including steam explosion alone (195 °C for 5, 10 and 15 min) and after impregnation with the following catalysts: Ca(OH)2 at low (0.4%) and high (0.7%) concentration; Ca(OH)2 at high concentration and higher temperature (205 °C for 5,
This paper demonstrates how a strain energy transition approach can be used to remove artificial buckling modes that often occur in stability constrained topology optimization problems. To simulate the structural response, a nonlinear large deformation hyperelastic simulation is performed, wherein the fundamental load path is traversed using Newton’s method and the critical buckling load levels ar
The environmental impact of products has been increasingly discussed in recent years. In response to questions of the environmental appropriateness of, for example, technologies used to attain a high level of fire safety, a model has been developed to quantify the emissions from fires and include this into a holistic treatment of the environmental impact of a product from the cradle to the grave.
Editor's notes: This article discusses self-awareness in wearable edge devices to enable real-time and long-term health monitoring. The authors use the notion of self-awareness to improve the battery life of edge wearable sensors for multimodal health and workload monitoring. This approach leads to a 27.6% lower energy consumption with less than 6% of performance loss. - Umit Y. Ogras, Arizona Sta
If resource intensive practices are regularly represented as conventional, these potentially become naturalised and inconspicuous consumption will increase. Understanding how representations, conventions and everyday practices interact is thus fundamental in tackling unsustainable consumption. To gain new insights into how representations, conventions and practices interact, this paper explores ho
Swedish municipalities have traditionally had significant powers and played a major role in implementing national energy strategies. This paper describes the factors influencing development of municipal climate and energy plans in five Swedish municipalities and assesses the relevance and importance of these factors from theoretical and practical perspectives. The questions raised in the paper are
The relationship between energy and capital is one of the most important relationships of modern economic growth. Machines need energy to produce all the goods we enjoy; energy without machinery is useless. However, the great majority of the economic models do not take into account the elasticities of substitution (or complementaries) between these two main variables. Actually, energy is absent in
The chemical industry is primarily dependent on fossil oil and gas as raw materials. With increasing demands on reducing the greenhouse gas emissions and carbon footprint attributed to fossil based production, the industry looks for alternative renewable cleaner resources to secure the supplies for future chemical and material products. The current trend in the shift to bio-based economy aims at u
From an environmental perspective, a separate collection and recycling system for post-consumer discards could contribute to improved environmental protection as well as economic benefits. This paper investigates the environmental potential of a business model proposed in Sweden in order to improve the utilization of plastic shopping bags. The business model aims to reduce the consumption of plast
Warming in the Arctic accelerates thawing of permafrost-affected soils, which leads to a release of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. We do not know whether permafrost thaw also releases non-methane volatile organic compounds that can contribute to both negative and positive radiative forcing on climate. Here we show using proton transfer reaction–time of flight–mass spectrometry that substantia
The thymus is the primary lymphoid organ where naïve T cells are generated; however, with the exception of age, the parameters that govern its function in healthy humans remain unknown. We characterized the variability of thymic function among 1000 age- and sex-stratified healthy adults of the Milieu Intérieur cohort, using quantification of T cell receptor excision circles (TRECs) in peripheral b
Transportation of people and goods largely relies on the use of fossil hydrocarbons, contributing to global warming and problems with local air quality. There are a number of alternatives to fossil fuels that can avoid a net carbon emission and can also decrease pollutant emissions. However, many have significant difficulty in competing with fossil fuels due to either limited availability, limited
Our aim with this report is to discuss vehicle fuels from a wide perspective of sustainability. Biofuels and electricity are analyzed and compared to fossil vehicle fuels. Our goal is to try to point out the circumstances under which vehicle fuels can be reasonably perceived as sustainable, and which systems we should develop and which we should avoid. The all-embracing conclusion of this study is
The purpose of this study is to describe how the energy efficiency and greenhouse gas (GHG) benefits of ethanol depend on local conditions and calculation methods. The following four parameters have been identified as crucial to the GHG benefits of ethanol: (i) energy efficiency and emissions of nitrous oxide during cultivation, (ii) what kind of fuel is used in ethanol plants, (iii) how efficient
High efficiency, environmental friendliness, low operation and maintenance costs, and the lowest possible impact on the environment are some of the requirements of sustainable energy production. In the selection of new power generation systems, a number of steps have to be taken into account in order to meet these requirements. Here, the first law analysis has been implemented and investigated, fo
