| 1. |
- Eivazihollagh, Alireza, et al.
(författare)
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On chelating surfactants : Molecular perspectives and application prospects
- 2019
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Ingår i: Journal of Molecular Liquids. - : Elsevier BV. - 0167-7322 .- 1873-3166. ; 278, s. 688-705
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Chelating agents, molecules that very strongly coordinates certain metal ions, are used industrially as well as in consumer products to minimize disturbances and increase performance of reactions and applications. The widely used sequestering agents, nitrilotriacetic acid (NTA), ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) and diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid (DTPA) belong to this branch of readily water-soluble compounds. When these chemical structures also have hydrophobic parts, they are prone to adsorb at air-water interfaces and to self-assemble. Such bifunctional molecules can be called chelating surfactants and will have more extended utilization prospects than common chelating agents or ordinary ionic surfactants. The present review attempts to highlight the fundamental behavior of chelating surfactants in solution and at interfaces, and their very specific interactions with metal ions. Methods to recover chelating surfactants from metal chelates are also described. Moreover, utilization of chelating surfactants in applications for metal removal in environmental engineering and mineral processing, as well as for metal control in the fields of biology, chemistry and physics, is exemplified and discussed.
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| 2. |
- Stolen, Reidar, et al.
(författare)
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Solcelleteknologi og brannsikkerhet
- 2018
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Bruken av solcelleteknologi er i stor vekst i Norge. I denne studien er branntekniske utfordringer ved bruk av solcelleteknologi undersøkt, med hensyn på brannstart, brannspredning og brannslokking. Studien danner et kunnskapsgrunnlag for å ivareta brannsikkerheten under montering, drift og under slokkeinnsats, samt for å utforme et enhetlig og tydelig regelverk. Resultatene fra studien viser:Brannstart: Solcelleinstallasjoner inneholder mange koblingspunkt, som kan være potensielle tennkilder, og en liten mengde brennbare materialer. Dermed er det som trengs til stede for å starte en brann. Det er viktig at alle kontaktpunkter i solcelleinstallasjonen er robuste og tåler den påkjenningen de blir utsatt for gjennom sin levetid uten at det oppstår dårlig kontakt som kan føre til brann.Brannspredning: For utenpåmonterte solcellemoduler er det ofte en åpen luftspalte mellom modul og bygning. Dersom det er en brann i denne luftspalten, vil varmen kunne bli akkumulert, noe som kan føre til raskere og større brannspredning enn om bygningsoverflaten ikke hadde vært tildekket. I fullskalaforsøk med solcellemoduler montert på tak spredte brannen seg under hele arealet som var dekket av moduler, men stoppet da den nærmet seg kanten av dette arealet. Dette illustrerer viktigheten av at områder med solceller utenpå en bygning blir seksjonert for å unngå brannspredning. Eventuelt kan det benyttes mindre brennbare materialer på taket under solcellemodulene for å motvirke den økte varmepåkjenningen som solcellemodulene gir. Luftspalten mellom modul og bygning kan potensielt også gi endringer i luftstrømningen langs bygget, som igjen kan påvirke brannspredningen.Brannslokking: Brannvesenet har behov for informasjon om det er solcelleinstallasjon i bygget og hvilke deler av det elektriske anlegget som kan være spenningssatt. Under slokkeinnsats må brannvesenet ta hensyn til berøringsfare, og fare for at det kan oppstå lysbuer og andre feil som kan føre til nye antennelsespunkt. Ferskvann kan brukes som slokkemiddel, dette må spyles fra minimum 1 meters avstand med spredt stråle og minimum 5 meters avstand med samlet stråle. Solcellemoduler kan komplisere brannslokking ved at de danner en fysisk barriere mellom brannvesenet og brannen, samt fordi det må tas hensyn til plassering av spenningssatte komponenter. Når disse punktene er tatt høyde for, bør ikke utenpåmonterte solcelleinstallasjoner være et problem.Videre arbeid: For utenpåmonterte solcelleinstallasjoner, er det lite forskning på vertikal montering (på fasader), og hvordan en eventuell endret branndynamikk kan påvirke brannspredning og slokking. Videre er det i dag økende bruk av bygningsintegrerte solcelleinstallasjoner, noe som gir mange mulige nye utfordringer for brannsikkerheten og for regelverk, ettersom solcellen da er en del av bygningskroppen, samtidig som den er en elektrisk komponent. Tysk statistikk tyder på at brannrisiko for slike installasjoner kan være større enn for utenpåmonterte solcelleinstallasjoner, og dette vil det derfor være viktig å undersøke nærmere.
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| 3. |
- Ågerstrand, Marlene, et al.
(författare)
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Improving Environmental Risk Assessment of Human Pharmaceuticals
- 2015
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Ingår i: Environmental Science & Technology. - : American Chemical Society (ACS). - 0013-936X .- 1520-5851. ; 49:9, s. 5336-5345
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper presents 10 recommendations for improving the European Medicines Agency's guidance for environmental risk assessment of human pharmaceutical products. The recommendations are based on up-to-date, available science in combination with experiences from other chemical frameworks such as the REACH-legislation for industrial chemicals. The recommendations concern: expanding the scope of the current guideline; requirements to assess the risk for development of antibiotic resistance; jointly performed assessments; refinement of the test proposal; mixture toxicity assessments on active pharmaceutical ingredients with similar modes of action; use of all available ecotoxicity studies; mandatory reviews; increased transparency; inclusion of emission data from production; and a risk management option. We believe that implementation of our recommendations would strengthen the protection of the environment and be beneficial to society. Legislation and guidance documents need to be updated at regular intervals in order to incorporate new knowledge from the scientific community. This is particularly important for regulatory documents concerning pharmaceuticals in the environment since this is a research field that has been growing substantially in the last decades.
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| 4. |
- Harris, Steve, et al.
(författare)
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Circularity for circularity's sake? : Scoping review of assessment methods for environmental performance in the circular economy.
- 2021
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Ingår i: Sustainable Production and Consumption. - : Elsevier B.V.. - 2352-5509. ; 26, s. 172-186
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Circular Economy (CE) concept is receiving increasing global attention and has captivated many disciplines, from sustainability through to business and economics. There is currently a strong drive by companies, academics and governments alike to implement the CE. Numerous “circularity indicators” have emerged that measure material flow or recirculated value of a system (e.g. product or nation). However, if its implementation is to improve environmental performance of society, the action must be based on scientific evidence and quantification or it may risk driving “circularity for circularity's sake”. This paper, therefore, aims to review the recent circular economy literature that focuses on assessing the environmental implications of circularity of products and services. To do this we divide the system levels into micro (product level), meso (industrial estate/symbiosis) and macro (national or city level). A scoping literature review explores the assessment methods and indicators at each level. The results suggest that few studies compare circularity indicators with environmental performance or link the circularity indicators between society levels (e.g. the micro and macro-levels). However, adequate tools exist at each level (e.g. life cycle assessment (LCA) at the micro-level and multi-regional input-output (MRIO) analysis at the macro-level) to provide the ability to adequately assess and track the CE performance if placed within a suitable framework. The challenge to connect the micro and macro-levels remains. This would help understand the link between changes at the micro-level at the macro-level, and the environmental consequences. At the meso-level, industrial symbiosis continues to grow in potential, but there is a need for further research on the assessment of its contribution to environmental improvement. In addition, there is limited understanding of the use phase. For example, national monitoring programmes do not have indicators on stocks of materials or the extent of the circular economy processes (such as the reuse economy, maintenance and spare parts) which already contribute to the CE. The societal needs/functions framework offers a promising meso-level link to bridge the micro and macro-levels for assessment, monitoring and setting thresholds. © 2020 The Authors
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| 5. |
- Mathern, Alexandre, 1986, et al.
(författare)
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Concrete Support Structures for Offshore Wind Turbines: Current Status, Challenges, and Future Trends
- 2021
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Ingår i: Energies. - : MDPI AG. - 1996-1073 .- 1996-1073. ; 14:7
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Today’s offshore wind turbine support structures market is largely dominated by steel structures, since steel monopiles account for the vast majority of installations in the last decade and new types of multi-leg steel structures have been developed in recent years. However, as wind turbines become bigger, and potential sites for offshore wind farms are located in ever deeper waters and ever further from the shore, the conditions for the design, transport, and installation of support structures are changing. In light of these facts, this paper identifies and categorizes the challenges and future trends related to the use of concrete for support structures of future offshore wind projects. To do so, recent advances and technologies still under development for both bottom-fixed and floating concrete support structures have been reviewed. It was found that these new developments meet the challenges associated with the use of concrete support structures, as they will allow the production costs to be lowered and transport and installation to be facilitated. New technologies for concrete support structures used at medium and great water depths are also being developed and are expected to become more common in future offshore wind installations. Therefore, the new developments identified in this paper show the likelihood of an increase in the use of concrete support structures in future offshore wind farms. These developments also indicate that the complexity of future support structures will increase due to the development of hybrid structures combining steel and concrete. These evolutions call for new knowledge and technical know-how in order to allow reliable structures to be built and risk-free offshore installation to be executed.
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| 6. |
- Boons, Frank, et al.
(författare)
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Comparing industrial symbiosis in Europe : towards a conceptual framework and research methodology
- 2015
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Ingår i: International perspectives on industrial ecology. - Cheltenham : Edward Elgar Publishing. - 9781781003565 - 9781781003572 ; , s. 69-88
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Industrial symbiosis (IS) continues to raise the interest of researchers and practitioners alike. Individual and haphazard attempts to increase linkages among co-located firms have been complemented by concerted efforts to stimulate the development of industrial regions with intensified resource exchanges that reduce environmental impact. Additionally, there are examples of both spontaneous and facilitated linkages between two or more firms involving flows of materials/energy waste. A striking feature of IS activities is that they are found across diverse social contexts and vary considerably in form (Lombardi et al., 2012); there are substantial differences in the ways in which IS manifests itself. Equally diverse are the activities of policy makers to stimulate such linkages. Such diversity can already be found within Europe, as became apparent in a first meeting among some of the present authors in 2009 (Isenmann and Chernykh, 2009). Researchers present there decided to create a network of European researchers on IS, with the explicit aim to develop a comparative analysis. We can thus provide insight to the relationship between the style of IS and its context and thereby the potential for policy makers in different contexts to learn from each other. Policy learning can be a tempting route to IS, but is fraught with difficulties if the influence of context is not appreciated (e.g., Wang et al., Chapter 6, this volume).
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| 7. |
- Bjorn, A., et al.
(författare)
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Review of life-cycle based methods for absolute environmental sustainability assessment and their applications
- 2020
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Ingår i: Environmental Research Letters. - : IOP Publishing Ltd. - 1748-9326 .- 1748-9318. ; 15:8
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In many regions and at the planetary scale, human pressures on the environment exceed levels that natural systems can sustain. These pressures are caused by networks of human activities, which often extend across countries and continents due to global trade. This has led to an increasing requirement for methods that enable absolute environmental sustainability assessment (AESA) of anthropogenic systems and which have a basis in life cycle assessment (LCA). Such methods enable the comparison of environmental impacts of products, companies, nations, etc, with an assigned share of environmental carrying capacity for various impact categories. This study is the first systematic review of LCA-based AESA methods and their applications. After developing a framework for LCA-based AESA methods, we identified 45 relevant studies through an initial survey, database searches and citation analysis. We characterized these studies according to their intended application, impact categories, basis of carrying capacity estimates, spatial differentiation of environmental model and principles for assigning carrying capacity. We then characterized all method applications and synthesized their results. Based on this assessment, we present recommendations to practitioners on the selection and use of existing LCA-based AESA methods, as well as ways to perform assessments and communicate results to decision-makers. Furthermore, we identify future research priorities intended to extend coverage of all components of the proposed method framework, improve modeling and increase the applicability of methods. © 2020 The Author(s).
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| 8. |
- Ahrné, Karin, et al.
(författare)
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Tillstånd och trender för arter och deras livsmiljöer – rödlistade arter i Sverige 2015
- 2015
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- 2015 års upplaga av den svenska rödlistan är den fjärde i ordningen. Den är baserad på IUCN:s rödlistningskriterier och revideras vart femte år. I rödlistan bedöms risken som enskilda arter av djur, växter och svampar löper att försvinna från Sverige. Bedömningen utförs av ArtDatabankens medarbetare i samverkan med över 100 externa experter, indelade i 14 expertkommittéer för olika organismgrupper. Under arbetet med 2015 års rödlista har tillstånd och trender bedömts för 21 600 arter och 1 318 lägre taxa (apomiktiska arter, underarter och varieteter), sammanlagt ca 22 900 taxa. Av de bedömda arterna klassificerades 2 029 som hotade (kategorierna CR, EN och VU) och 4 273 som rödlistade (inkluderar även kategorierna NT, RE och DD). Förhållandet mellan antalet rödlistade och antalet bedömda arter ar 19,8 %, vilket är ungefär samma värde som 2010 och 2005. I denna rapport jämförs antalet och andelen rödlistade arter mellan olika organismgrupper, biotoper, substrat och påverkansfaktorer. Texten ar indelad i en allmän del och åtta kapitel inriktade på olika landskapstyper. Landskapstyperna utgör en grov indelning av landets miljöer enligt följande kategorier: Skog, Jordbrukslandskap, Urbana miljöer, Fjäll, Våtmarker, Sötvatten, Havsstränder och Havsmiljöer. Skogen och jordbrukslandskapet är de artrikaste landskapstyperna med 1 800 respektive 1 400 arter som har en stark anknytning dit, och ytterligare flera hundra arter som förekommer där mer sporadiskt. De faktorer som påverkar flest rödlistade arter i Sverige är skogsavverkning och igenväxning, som båda utgör ett hot mot vardera ca 30 % av de rödlistade arterna. Avverkning minskar arealen av skog där naturliga strukturer och naturlig dynamik upprätthålls, och den orsakar därmed förlust av livsmiljöer. Igenväxning orsakas av ett antal faktorer, bland annat upphörande hävd (bete och slåtter), gödsling, trädplantering och brist på naturliga störningsregimer som t.ex. regelbundna översvämningar kring vattendrag och sjöar. Andra viktiga påverkansfaktorer är fiske, torrläggning av våtmarker, tillbakagång hos värdarter (främst alm och ask som drabbats av invasiva svampsjukdomar), klimatförändringar och konkurrens från invasiva arter. IUCN:s rödlisteindex beräknas för ett urval av de bedömda organismgrupperna. Rödlisteindex visar att skillnaderna mellan rödlistorna från 2000, 2005, 2010 och 2015 är små. Ett par undantag finns dock. Groddjur och stora däggdjur har fått en något förbättrad situation sedan 2000. Totalt förefaller det ändå som att trycket mot Sveriges artstock har förblivit relativt konstant under de senaste 15 åren.
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| 9. |
- Johansson, Björn, 1975, et al.
(författare)
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Power Level Sampling of Metal Cutting Machines for Data Representation in Discrete Event Simulation
- 2015
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Ingår i: International Journal of Production Research. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0020-7543 .- 1366-588X. ; 53:23, s. 7060-7070
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- An extension to the application area for discrete event simulation (DES) has been ongoing since the last decade and focused only on economic aspects to include ecologic sustainability. With this new focus, additional input parameters, such as electrical power consumption of machines, are needed. This paper aim at investigating how NC machine power consumption should be represented in simulation models of factories. The study includes data-sets from three different factories. One factory producing truck engine blocks, one producing brake disc parts for cars and one producing forklift components. The total number of data points analysed are more than 2,45,000, where of over 1,11,000 on busy state for 11 NC machines. The low variability between busy cycles indicates that statistical representations are not adding significant variability. Furthermore, results show that non-value-added activities cause a substantial amount of the total energy consumption, which can be reduced by optimising the production flow using dynamic simulations such as DES.
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| 10. |
- Bergquist, Bjarne, et al.
(författare)
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Alive and kicking–but will Quality Management be around tomorrow? A Swedish academia perspective
- 2012
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Ingår i: Quality Innovation Prosperity. - : Technical University of Kosice, Faculty of Materials, Metallurgy and Recycling. - 1335-1745 .- 1338-984X. ; 16:2, s. 1-18
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The purpose of this article is to describe how Quality Management (QM) is perceived today by scholars at three Swedish universities, and into what QM is expected to develop into in twenty years. Data were collected through structured workshops using affinity diagrams with scholars teaching and performing research in the QM field. The results show that QM currently is perceived as consisting of a set of core of principles, methods and tools. The future outlook includes three possible development directions for QM are seen: [1] searching for a “discipline X” where QM can contribute while keeping its toolbox, [2] focus on a core based on the traditional quality technology toolbox with methods and tools, and [3] a risk that QM, as it is today, may seize to exist and be diffused into other disciplines.
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