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Copyright of Environmental & Social Management Journal / Revista de Gestão Social e Ambiental is the property of Environmental & Social Management Journal and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The pulp and paper industry (PPI) has several opportunities to contribute to meeting prevailing climate targets. It can cut its own CO2 emissions, which currently account for 2% of global industrial fossil CO2 emissions, and it has an opportunity to produce renewable energy, fuels, and materials for other sectors. The purpose of this study is to improve understanding of the decarbonization prospects of the PPI. The study provides insights on the magnitude of needed annual renewal rates for several possible net-zero target years of industrial fossil CO2 emissions in the PPI and discusses decarbonization opportunities, namely, energy and material efficiency improvement, fuel switching, electrification, renewable energy production, carbon capture, and new products. The effects of climate policies on the decarbonization opportunities are critically evaluated to provide an overview of the current and future business environment of the European PPI. The focus is on Europe, but other regions are analyzed briefly to widen the view. The analysis shows that there are no major technical barriers to the fossil-free operation of the PPI, but the sector renovates slowly, and many new opportunities are not implemented on a large scale due to immature technology, poor economic feasibility, or unclear political environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The energy needed for the dewatering and drying of wet paper web represents around half of the energy consumption of papermaking processes. The present work examined whether the dewatering and drying of paper could be enhanced during a previous pulp drying process by pretreating the fibers with polyamide-epichlorohydrin (PAE). According to the hypothesis, the cured PAE restrains swelling and water absorption of water-wetted fibers by forming a fiber-bound, self-crosslinked polymernetwork on the fiber surfaces. The hypothesis was tested by adding PAE to never-dried kraft pulp slurry followed by pulp thickening, drying, and final curing of the PAE-resin. After this, the PAE-treated fibers were dispersed in water, and their water retention values (WRV) and Shopper-Riegler values (°SR) were measured. The PAE pretreatments notably decreased the fibers' WRV and °SR, indicating improved water removal of paper web in the paper machine forming and drying section. Compared to chemical crosslinking pretreatments, which also can be used to decrease fibers WRV and °SR-value, a notable advantage of PAE-pretreatment is milder required curing conditions of the PAE, which makes implementation of the method easier in practice. Due to decreased fiber-to-fiber bonding capability, the PAE-treated specialty fibers could take advantage especially as a bulking aid of paperboard, tissue, and absorbent materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there are opportunities to reduce electrical energy demand in unit processes of mechanical pulp-based paper and paperboard production, this may not be financially beneficial. This is generally because energy optimization opportunities connected to reduced refiner electricity demand in mechanical pulping systems also results in less steam available for the drying of the paper. As modern high consistency refiner systems produce approximately one ton of steam for each MWh of electricity when producing one ton of pulp, a reduction in electric energy demand leads to increased fuel demand in steam boilers to compensate for the steam shortage. In this study, we investigated what the financial and environmental situation would look like if we were to expand the system border from a paper mill to a larger system consisting of a mechanical pulp-based paper or paperboard mill, a district heating system with an incineration boiler and a chemical pulp mill. Mechanical pulp production has a wood to product yield of >90%, a high electric energy demand to separate woodchips to pulp and is a net producer of heat and steam while chemical pulp-based production has a wood to product yield of 50%, a low electric energy demand and is a net heat and electricity producer due to the combustion of dissolved wood polymers. The aim of this research is to create useful and robust models of how to use excess heat from certain industry sites to cover the steam shortage in other industry sites by means of utilizing and optimizing the district heating systems connecting these sites. For this purpose, we used a simulation tool which dynamically allows us to evaluate different scenarios. Our results shows that there is great potential to reduce both carbon dioxide emissions and production costs for industry sites and society by means of these tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents studies on the impact of the significant process parameters of a paper machine with a Yankee cylinder on its production capacity and heat energy consumption for drying the paper web. Parameters such as machine speed, web moisture content before and after pressing, parameters of steam supplied to the cylinder and parameters of hot air flowing from the nozzles of the hood were analyzed. The study's results were used to optimize production to improve the energy efficiency and performance of the machine. In order to use the possible methods of improving the production capacity and heat energy consumption, the parameters of the production process were measured and the basic indicators characterizing the operation of the machine were calculated in the Yankee cylinder–dryer hood system. The correct functioning of the machine components and the possibility of their modernization were also analyzed. Technological and construction changes introduced based on the research results made it possible to increase the production capacity by 10% and to reduce the consumption of heat energy per 1 ton of produced paper by 16.3%. The article presents a description of changes in the technology of paper production and modernization of the tissue machine made in the years 2013–2022. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

NiFe2O4 material is grown on carbon paper (CP) with the hydrothermal method for use as electrocatalysts in an alkaline electrolyzer. NiFe2O4 material is used as the anode and cathode catalysts (named NiFe(+)/NiFe(−) hereafter). The results are compared with those obtained using CP/NiFe as the anode and CP/Ru as the cathode (named NiFe)(+)/Ru(−) hereafter). During cell operation with NiFe(+)/Ru(−), the current density reaches 500 mA/cm2 at a cell voltage of 1.79 V, with a specific energy consumption of 4.9 kWh/m3 and an energy efficiency of 66.2%. In comparison, for NiFe(+)/NiFe(−), the current density reaches 500 mA/cm2 at a cell voltage of 2.23 V, with a specific energy consumption of 5.7 kWh/m3 and an energy efficiency of 56.6%. The Faradaic efficiency is 96–99%. With the current density fixed at 400 mA/cm2, after performing a test for 150 h, the cell voltage with NiFe(+)/Ru(−) increases by 0.167 V, whereas that with NiFe(+)/NiFe(−) decreases by only 0.010 V. Good, long-term stability is demonstrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the field of intelligent transportation, the planning of traffic flows that meet energy-efficient driving requirements necessitates the acquisition of energy consumption data for each vehicle within the traffic flow. The current methods for calculating vehicle energy consumption generally rely on longitudinal dynamics models, which require comprehensive knowledge of all vehicle power system parameters. While this approach is feasible for individual vehicle models, it becomes impractical for a large number of vehicle types. This paper proposes a digital model for vehicle driving energy consumption using vehicle speed, acceleration, and battery state of charge (SOC) as inputs and energy consumption as output. The model is trained using an optimized CNN-BiLSTM-Attention (OCBA) network architecture. In comparison to other methods, the OCBA-trained model for predicting PHEV driving energy consumption is more accurate in simulating the time-dependency between SOC and instantaneous fuel and power consumption, as well as the power distribution relationship within PHEVs. This provides an excellent framework for the digital modeling of complex power systems with multiple power sources. The model requires only 54 vehicle tests for training, which is significantly fewer than over 2000 tests typically needed to obtain parameters for power system components. The model's prediction error for fuel consumption under unknown conditions is reduced to 5%, outperforming the standard error benchmark of 10%. Furthermore, the model demonstrates high generalization capability with an R2 value of 0.97 for unknown conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This mini‐review summarises and discusses recent findings form the literature on the degradation of carbon‐based electrodes for vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFBs). It becomes evident that the focus of current investigations is on carbon paper, carbon felt and graphite felt electrodes, which is understandable from a practical point of view. However, the structural complexity of these materials often prohibits doubtless attribution of observed performance reduction (or increase) to changes in the electrode materials. Among the discussed major causes for degradation are formation or change of surface functional groups, changes in the carbon sp2/sp3 ratio, intercalation of ions as well as formation of inhibiting adsorbates. In order to gain deeper insight into the changes of carbon electrodes in VRFBs under relevant operation conditions, the authors suggest reducing complexity of the investigated materials and applying in situ‐studies under well‐defined and controllable conditions on model electrodes. These studies then should be extended towards more practical systems and may finally help to reduce degradation phenomena including enhanced overvoltages and thus could improve cycling and energy efficiency as well as long‐term stability of vanadium redox flow batteries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

State-of-the-art manufacturing of tissue paper by Through Air Drying provides excellent product performance, although at a high production cost and energy use. In this work, a laboratory scale vacuum suction box was used to mimic the initial dewatering and the Through Air Drying molding, together with a pilot-scale trial. The purpose was to investigate both how the laboratory scale corresponds to pilot scale testing and investigate how fabric design, basis weight, beating, and fibers affect dewatering and sheet caliper. This study reevaluates dewatering mechanisms during molding, challenging the previous hypothesis of pure air displacement dewatering. Results show a parallel mechanism of compression dewatering and air displacement. The influence of rush transfer is examined, impacting the sheets' visual appearance, thickness, and solids content. Correlations between molding box solids content and headbox freeness emphasize significance of fibers and beating levels. Pilot results confirm the link between former solids and molding box solids. Pilot trials validate the laboratory results, facilitating comprehensive simulation of full-scale manufacturing. This research reveals dewatering mechanisms, highlights operational parameters, and enables effective Through Air Drying process design and refinement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to their potential to improve roadway safety, reduce traffic congestion, and enhance the mobility of people and goods, Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) have generated considerable enthusiasm in the transportation community. In this white paper, state-of-the practice ITS programs that are environmentally beneficial are highlighted spanning the three main areas of ITS, including, Vehicle Systems, Traffic Management Systems, and Traveler Information Systems. Recent ITS research programs in the US and EU are outlined.View the NCST Project Webpage

This paper studies the impact of digital economy development on carbon emissions, which is a hot topic in the field of environmental economics. This topic is within the scope of the Frontiers in Environmental Science and is particularly in line with the theme of Environmental Economics and Management section in the journal. Firstly, this paper constructs the Digital Economy Development Index and its variable indicators to measure the development of the digital economy. Secondly, this paper uses urban panel data to reveal the impact of digital economy development on carbon emissions, and further adopts IV method to deal with endogeneity issues. Thirdly, this paper performs the heterogeneity analyses depending on the characteristics of the city. The results can provide a basis for formulating differentiated policies. Fourthly, this paper further explores the mechanism by which the digital economy affects carbon peaking. The results show that the digital economy may influence carbon peaking through upgrading of the industrial structure, technical innovation, and energy consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Producing tissue paper is an energy-demanding process; a significant amount of energy is expended when removing water by vacuum, mechanical pressing, and thermal drying. Because the water is most energy-demanding to remove in drying, making the preceding step of vacuum dewatering more efficient would benefit the whole process. This article focuses on developing a laboratory-scale method for verifying the nature of diminishing returns of water removal and investigating efficiency strategies of the vacuum dewatering. The theoretical concept of successive vacuum suction boxes with progressing vacuum levels was tested at the laboratory scale in order to show quantifiable results of the previously solely theoretical concept. The results confirmed that vacuum dewatering can be improved by adding progressively higher vacuum levels and that such a practice can benefit both outgoing dryness levels and expended vacuum pump energy. To truly examine the power of progression of vacuum levels, rewetting can be included in the calculations, by using an approximate value collected from pilot or fullscale measurements. For any new fiber mix, pulp type, vacuum level setup, basis weight, etc. the vacuum levels, rewetting, and dwell times need to be tuned to that specific case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has revealed the existence of an energy-efficiency gap – the difference between optimal and actual energy end-use, suggesting that energy efficiency can be improved. Energy management (EnM) is a means for improving industrial energy efficiency. However, due to various barriers, the full potential of EnM is not realised. Several studies have addressed drivers and barriers to energy efficiency but few to EnM. This study aims to identify EnM practices, the most important perceived drivers and barriers for EnM, and relations among them in the energy-intensive Swedish pulp and paper industry (PPI), which has the longest experience internationally of practising EnM systems, and has worked according to the standards since 2004. Our results show that, altogether, the PPI works regularly and continuously with EnM, with a clear division of responsibilities. The highest maturity for EnM practices was for energy policy, followed by organization, investments, and performance measurement. The study also shows that communication between middle management and operations personnel has potential for improvement. The most important categories of drivers were economic, whereas for barriers they were organizational. Nevertheless, knowledge-related barriers and drivers were amongst the most important, suggesting that the absorptive capacity for energy issues could be improved. Image 1029 • Energy is managed continuously, with clear policies and responsibilities. • The main drivers are economical while main barriers are organizational. • Knowledge related barriers and drivers are amongst the next most important. • Employees' absorptive capacity for energy issues could be improved. • Link between energy policy and performance measurement could be improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Guiding industries to produce in an effective and environmentally sustainable manner has become a key issue for governments around the world. Over the past 15 years, series of regional and industrial development policies have been introduced by the Chinese government. This has influenced the geographical distribution and energy efficiency performance of China’s industries. This paper quantifies the influence of enterprises geographical distribution on energy efficiency improvement in the paper industry and aims at providing some helpful suggestions on industrial development to policy makers. The main results show that, firstly, the paper industry in eastern China shows obvious characteristic of agglomeration. The average location quotient is 1.2278. However, following the industrial and regional development policies, the characteristic of agglomeration is weakening. Secondly, only when agglomeration reaches a certain level (location quotient is above 0.5447) will industrial agglomeration positively impact on industrial energy efficiency improvement (a 1% increase in agglomeration will increase dynamic energy efficiency by at least 0.23%). Thirdly, the regional development policies carried out by the government slow the pace of energy efficiency improvement in China’s paper industry. The empirical results indicate that the government needs to consider regional characteristics and consciously guide industrial enterprises to concentrate in the dominant area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Papermaking enterprises are currently under both environmental pressure and economic pressure for sustainable development in China. Thus, the efficiency, effectiveness, and benefits of resource utilization need to be improved. High-consumption and high-pollution companies should manufacture paper using sustainable methods. This study highlights a resource value flow analysis from the circular economy perspective, developing an extension of material flow cost accounting and modifying it by accounting for environmental damage as well as economic benefits. With reference to the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle, this specific case study was conducted to verify the comprehensive utility of resource value flow analysis by establishing decision-making prioritization according to the dualistic diagnosis of "internal resource loss–external environmental damage costs." In general, applying a resource value flow analysis can both reduce resource consumption and minimize environmental damage, enhancing the sustainable development of a process industry with limited resources. Highlights • Material flows and value flows form an interactive unit in the resource value flow analysis model. • The resource value flow analysis model extends the environmental dimension of material flow cost accounting. • A dualistic diagnosis of "internal resource loss and external environmental damage costs" can achieve both economic profits and environmental benefits. • The Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle was introduced to strengthen the practical application of the resource value flow analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon emissions from the Yangtze River Economic Belt are an important element of China's carbon emission endeavor, and a study of its emission reduction pathway can provide a reference for the country's overall management of carbon emission reduction. From the perspective of energy consumption, this paper uses the carbon emission factor method to estimate the carbon emissions of the transportation industry in the Yangtze River Economic Belt during 2006–2020, based on the extended STIRPAT model, considering the influence of seven factors, i.e., population size, urbanization rate, GDP per capita, transportation added value, energy structure, energy intensity, and transportation intensity, on carbon emissions. Based on these factors, a scenario analysis, combined with a forecasting model, is used to predict the peak carbon performance of the transportation industry under different development scenarios. The results show that the overall carbon emissions of transportation in the YEB from 2006 to 2020 show a fluctuating upward trend, and the downstream carbon emissions are significantly higher than those in other regions. The main factors influencing carbon emissions from transportation in different upstream, midstream, and downstream regions vary, with both population and economic factors contributing to carbon emissions, while technical factors affect them differently. There are significant differences in the peak carbon performance of transportation under different development scenarios, and the government should take effective measures to work towards achieving the goals of the low-carbon or enhanced low-carbon scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A key challenge in prevention of global warming is how to increase energy efficiency, to be able to deal with increased fossil CO2 emissions from rising energy usage. Increasing energy efficiency will decrease energy usage and is in a key role in emission mitigation. The focus is the pulp and paper industry, which is energy-intensive. Development of industrial energy efficiency has been studied before but the role of industrial transformation is still mostly unknown. The knowledge must be improved, to be able to predict future developments in the most effective way. In this research, impact of various production unit closures and start-ups on energy efficiency of the Finnish pulp and paper industry were studied utilizing statistical analysis. Results indicate that about 20% of the Finnish pulp and paper industry energy efficiency improvement between 2011 and 2017 is caused by the major structural changes. The rest, 80% of the progress, was mainly due to improved technology and more optimal operational modes. Additional findings suggest that modern mill start-ups have a significantly greater potential to reduce energy consumption than old mill closures.

Recently, as the use of wearable devices and the demand for eco-friendly energy have increased, many studies have been conducted on triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs), which can economically harvest energy. Paper is considered a promising substrate and frame material that can be used to manufacture self-powered TENGs, owing to its flexibility, low cost, and accessibility. Herein, we present a sandwich-structured foldable paper-based TENG (FP-TENG) that comprises flexible materials and uses paper as a substrate. The FP-TENG can generate up to 572 mW/m2 of power via contact–separation of the triboelectric electrified body at the top and bottom. With more folds of the FP-TENG, the triboelectric cross-sectional area increases, and, thus, the electrical output increases. In addition, the proposed TENG exhibits excellent durability without signal degradation under 5000 cycles of repeated pushing motions. To demonstrate its practicality, the FP-TENG was manufactured in the form of a wristwatch Velcro and connected to an electronic watch panel to supply power. Various deformations are possible with origami, and they can drive wristwatches through external forces. Therefore, the FP-TENG is expected to be utilized as a sustainable and promising eco-friendly energy source for small electronic devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the surging energy price and environmental concerns, measures to improve energy efficiency have attracted increasing concerns of the manufacture sector, especially energy-intensive manufacturing industries such as tissue paper mills. Energy-efficiency scheduling, as a novel energy-efficient method, has attracted the attention of an increasing number of researchers in recent years. Drying process is the most energy-intensive production process in tissue paper mills, which has a great energy-saving potential. This paper aims to reduce the energy costs for the tissue paper mill, consisting of processing energy cost and set-up energy cost, through integrating drying process optimization with energy-efficient scheduling. First, the energy cost model and the scheduling model were built. Then, the energy cost of the drying process of every job in a given scheduling problem was optimized using particle swarm optimization (PSO). Afterwards, the energy cost was further optimized using energy-efficiency scheduling. In addition, a hybrid non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA-II) was utilized to solve the energy-efficiency scheduling problem. Finally, several real scheduling problems from a real tissue paper mill were addressed using the proposed approach to demonstrate its effectiveness in energy saving. The experiment result showed that there is a great energy-saving potential in the drying process, accounting for up to 12.53% of the total energy consumption. Moreover, the maximum energy saving ratio of the proposed approach could reach 9.03%. On the whole, the proposed approach can provide a new energy-saving method for tissue paper mills or other manufacturing industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pulp and paper production is an energy intensive process, that accounts for about 9% of industrial final energy use in Italy in 2016. While the energy intensity of the total manufacturing sector has decreased by 51% over the last twenty years, pulp and paper industry has shown a slower improvement, of only 4%. The sector presents wide opportunities for improving energy efficiency and, for this purpose, adequate knowledge of the energy saving potentials and their costs are essential prerequisites to design effective policies. In this paper, after assessing the current technologies and energy performance of the Italian pulp and paper industry, we identify the technical and economic potentials for fuel and electricity savings in the sector. While many studies in this field use data on efficient technologies from available literature, surveys or even theoretical estimates, the added value of this paper is the use of real data coming from 110 energy efficiency measures implemented in the field by the pulp and paper companies under the Italian White Certificates Scheme. The analysis indicates that the energy saving potentials, under conservative technology penetration rates, amount to 0.88 TWh for electricity and 4.47 TWh for fossil fuels consumption: such savings equal 12.6% and 18.6% of the sector electricity and fuel demand, and can be translated into mitigated CO2 emissions of 353 kt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the pulp and paper industry has changed a lot and products have been constructed in quite different methods using new technologies. It can be due to the emergence of challenges and constraints such as shortage of raw materials, energy consumption (fossil fuels, electric, etc.), management of the resulting pollutants, environmental issues, ongoing legal requirements and cleaner production strategies. In Iran, the pulp and paper industry's technological development is not keeping pace with global growth. Iran's pulp and paper mills supply a small fraction of domestic market. The reasons can be due to old technologies being used in factories, aging machinery, low productivity of production systems and lack of coordination with modern technologies. It leads to low-quality of paper products and willingness to buy local products. The aim of this study is to select the most appropriate technologies in the pulp section, due to high impact of pulp quality on the quality of final paper. Using a 2-filterd fuzzy decision-making, hierarchical structure of research is designed to assess technological alternatives according to the selected criteria. Findings show that after passing through two filters, Kraft method was chosen as the most appropriate method. The Kraft process has still many advantages like the high quality of the produced pulp and self-sufficiency in energy supply. This framework offers an appropriate procedure for identifying and selecting technologies that has not been used in past researches. Using this framework facilitates using a clear procedure for evaluating and selecting technology and prevents future losses for organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's paper industry accounts for a larger proportion of the global paper industry and consumes large amounts of energy. Energy conservation and pollution reduction of the industry have become the focus of China's national development strategy. Energy efficiency is an important index which directly determines the amounts of energy consumption and pollution emissions. To understand the energy efficiency evolution of China's paper industry, this paper establishes an input-output data of the paper industry for 29 provinces in China and applies DEA method and econometric models to estimate and comprehensively discuss the energy efficiency issues based on the framework of total factor efficiency. Our results indicate that China's paper industry has a large energy saving potential even though its energy efficiency has improved during the period 1990–2013. The saving potential is about 65% under the meta-frontier and 44% under the group-frontier. Moreover, there are significant differences between different regions in production technology and energy efficiency. The performance of eastern China is better than other regions. But the technology gaps between the different regions are shrinking and converging over time. Finally, some policy recommendations are proposed to improve the energy efficiency of the industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China’s paper industry consumes a lot of energy and emits huge amounts of pollutions. The Chinese government over the past decades has done a lot to promote energy efficiency of the industry. This paper studies the impact of industrial polices to improve energy efficiency. The energy efficiency change is firstly studied under a framework of total factor efficiency. On this basis, different econometric models are built to discuss the detailed energy efficiency characteristics of the paper industry. The main results are as follow: (i) ownership structure did influence the energy efficiency, but the influence is different in different conditions; (ii) energy efficiency of the paper industry can be improved by economies of scale; (iii) market competition can to some extent overcome the motivation and supervision problem that often occur in state-owned companies; (iv) energy price cannot play the role of resource allocation well in China. Finally, based on our findings, some suggestions are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing use of recycled paper by the paper industry to support the Green Industry in the Indonesian Pulp and Paper Industry. But technically, there are some disadvantages of recycled fiber usage such as low drainage rate in which boosted the high energy consumption on drying process. As already known, the drying process consumes the highest energy in papermaking. To overcome this problem, the research using the concentrate of endoglucanase Egl-II has done. The steps of research included production of endoglucanase Egl-II; concentration by ultrafiltration method, modification of recycled paper fibers using endoglucanase Egl-II; characterization of paper sheet; and evaluation of energy consumption in drying the sheet of paper. The results showed that endoglucanase Egl-II had increase drainage rate of recycled fiber stock, which indicate by the freeness number. The number had increased by 80 ml CSF (Canadian Standard Freeness) from 190 ml CSF to 270 ml CSF, and fiber retention increased by 0,63% from 99,31% to 99,94%. The dissolved cellobiose test results of recycled fiber stock by the enzyme treatment at low dosage showed that no degradation of cellulose, no change into soluble sugars. Characterization of sheet of paper that has been modified with endoglucanase Egl-II based FTIR spectra showed no change in functional group, SEM results showed on the fiber surface fibrils grow more, and the results of the XRD analysis showed area reduction of amorphous regions is about 6%. The potential for energy efficiency is calculated through thermodynamic approach is about 15%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Black-liquor-thickening in an integrated multi-effect evaporation plant consumes substantial amounts of steam produced in pulp and paper mills, and its efficient operation is, thus, crucial. Industrial applications of heat pumps in the pulp and paper industry, especially in black liquor evaporation, show promise in terms of cutting energy consumption and in decarbonizing this industrial branch. Modelling of such a plant includes momentum, heat and mass transfer issues, enriched with black liquor material specification. An existing black liquor evaporation plant which thickens inlet black liquor from 17% to 75% wt. dry solids with a dry solid flow of 2500 tonnes per day is considered. It already includes a MVR (mechanical vapor recompression) pre-evaporator as well as water-condensate stripping columns. A mathematical model of this plant is created in a Matlab environment and, after verification of obtained results, it serves for analyses of possible plant modifications. Among the modification options, installation of a second MVR is modeled and its impact on the whole plant is examined. As a result, a differential (marginal) change in steam and electricity consumed in the plant is obtained. Model results indicate the possibility of a reduction of process steam consumption of around 10 tonnes per hour and an increase in electricity consumption of 600 kW. A favorable simple payback period of 2.5 years can be expected for the considered investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic benefits of the pulp and paper industry have led it to be one of the most important industrial sections in the world. Nevertheless, in recent years, pulp and paper mills are facing challenges with the energy efficiency mechanisms and management of the resulting pollutants, considering the environmental feedbacks and ongoing legal requirements. This study reviews and discusses the recent developments of affordable methods dealing with pulp and paper mill wastewaters. To this end, the current state of the various processes used for pulp and paper production from virgin or recovered fibers has been briefly reviewed. Also, the relevant contaminants have been investigated, considering the used raw materials and applied techniques as the subject for further discussion about the relevant suitable wastewater treatment methods. The results of the present study indicated that adopting the integrated methods, alongside a combination of biological (e.g., anaerobic digestion) and physicochemical (e.g., novel Fenton reactions) treatment methods, can be environmentally and economically preferable to minimize environmental contaminants and energy recycling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The energy needed for the dewatering and drying of wet paper web represents around half of the energy consumption of papermaking processes. The present work examined whether the dewatering and drying of paper could be enhanced during a previous pulp drying process by pretreating the fibers with polyamide-epichlorohydrin (PAE). According to the hypothesis, the cured PAE restrains swelling and water absorption of water-wetted fibers by forming a fiber-bound, self-crosslinked polymer-network on the fiber surfaces. The hypothesis was tested by adding PAE to never-dried kraft pulp slurry followed by pulp thickening, drying, and final curing of the PAE-resin. After this, the PAE-treated fibers were dispersed in water, and their water retention values (WRV) and Shopper-Riegler values (○SR) were measured. The PAE pretreatments notably decreased the fibers´ WRV and ○SR, indicating improved water removal of paper web in the paper machine forming and drying section. Compared to chemical crosslinking pretreatments, which also can be used to decrease fibers WRV and ○SR-value, a notable advantage of PAE-pretreatment is milder required curing conditions of the PAE, which makes implementation of the method easier in practice. Due to decreased fiber-to-fiber bonding capability, the PAE-treated specialty fibers could take advantage especially as a bulking aid of paperboard, tissue, and absorbent materials.

Renewable energy production throughout low-voltage grids has gradually increased in electrical distribution systems, therefore introducing small energy producers - prosumers. This paradigm challenges the traditional unidirectional energy distribution flow to include disperse power production from renewables. To understand how energy usage can be optimized in the dynamic electrical grid, it is important to understand the behavior of prosumers and their impact on the grid's operational procedures. The main focus of this study is to investigate how grid operators can obtain an automatic data-driven system for the low-voltage electrical grid management, by analyzing the available grid topology and time-series consumption data from a real-life test area. The aim is to argue for how different consumer profiles, clustering and prediction methods contribute to the grid-related operations. Ultimately, this work is intended for future research directions that can contribute to improving the trade-off between systematic and scalable data models and software computational challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to achieve an increase in the profitability of tissue paper production, this research aimed to identify factors that affect the degree of pulp refinement and the tension index of the tissue paper when using short fiber, long fiber and Quimizine B enzyme. The methodology considered laboratory experiments, obtaining refining curves, multilevel factorial design and response surface diagrams. The results indicated that the most significant common factor in the pulp refining degree and tension index is the specific energy consumption for both types of fiber, and that optimal operating parameters can be known by analyzing the refining degree and tension index independently and simultaneously. It was concluded that the multilevel factorial design allowed to identify significant factors that influence the properties of the refining degree and the resistance of tissue paper when looking for an individual and simultaneous optimum and, that the influence of the enzyme increased the properties of the refining degree and the tensile strength of the paper when using raw material of short and long fiber from Eucalyptus globulus and Pinus radiata, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has become the world largest paper and paperboard producer. However, pulp and paper industry has involved high resource consumption and severe pollution especially for water. This research has assessed the eco-efficiency of China's pulp and paper industry at the national level and provincial level. An overview regarding the cleaner production of China's pulp and paper industry was presented to reveal the measures for reducing environmental impact in the last two decades. Slacks-based measure was used to analyze the efficiency levels of 16 provinces' pulp and paper industries. To uncover the underlying causes of eco-efficiency performance, Malmquist–Luenberger index was calculated to discover the drivers of productivity growth of pulp and paper industries. Our results showed that the pollution treatment of China's pulp and paper industry has made progress in terms of water consumption and water pollution, although the absolute amount of pollution discharge is still large. Chemical oxygen demand emissions are still the first critical influencing factor of pulp and paper industry's inefficiency. Furthermore, efficiency progress was the dominating contribution of the industry's productivity growth between 2010 and 2013. The policies for adjusting the industrial structure of pulp and paper industry have resulted in the scale effects through eliminating backward production capacity and accelerating merger and acquisitions. Moreover, the productivity of pulp and paper industry was underestimated when the undesirable outputs were ignored. It indicates that the stricter environmental regulations have positive effects on paper companies to internalize environmental pressures in the production activities through environmental management. In the future, pulp and paper companies should further internalize the cost of pollution treatment through scale effects and technology improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pulp and paper industry accounts for approximately 5% of total industrial energy consumption and contributes 2% of direct carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions from industries. World paper and paperboard demand and production are increasing significantly, leading to an increase in this sector's energy use and CO 2 emissions. Although current studies identify a wide range of energy-efficiency technologies that have already been commercialized for the pulp and paper industry, information is limited or scattered regarding new energy-efficiency technologies that are not yet fully commercialized. Development of emerging or advanced energy-efficiency technologies and their deployment in the market will be crucial for this industry's mid- and long-term energy saving and climate change mitigation strategies. This paper compiles available information on energy savings, environmental and other benefits, costs, and commercialization status for 25 emerging technologies to reduce the energy use and CO 2 emissions. The purpose is to provide a well-structured comprehensive review on these emerging energy-efficiency technologies for engineers, researchers, investors, policy makers, pulp and/or paper companies, and other interested parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Internet of Things (IoT) architectures generally focus on providing consistent performance and reliable communications. The convergence of IoT, edge, fog, and cloud aims to improve the quality of service of applications, which does not typically emphasize energy efficiency. Considering energy in IoT architectures would reduce the energy impact from billions of IoT devices. The research presented in this paper proposes an optimization framework that considers energy consumption of nodes when selecting a node for processing an IoT request in edge-fog-cloud layered architecture. The IoT use cases considered in this paper include smart grid, autonomous vehicles, and eHealth. The proposed framework is evaluated using CPLEX simulations. The results provide insights into mechanisms that can be used to select nodes energy-efficiently whilst meeting the application requirements and other network constraints in multi-layered IoT architectures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon containing waste has a certain calorific value and utilization value due to the presence of carbon elements. However, the current treatment methods are mostly traditional landfill disposal, incineration, or expensive physical and chemical reaction methods, which clearly do not comply with the rules of the current clean and resource-saving society. In this paper, a new technology and system for carbon containing wastes is proposed, which comprehensively treats and recycles carbon containing wastes, including solid waste, wastewater, waste gas, etc., using pyrolysis–gasification two-stage-cycle technology. The calculation results indicate that the technical scheme proposed in this article is feasible and can achieve the recycling of intermediate and final products, the efficient and clean utilization of carbon containing waste, and the graded utilization of energy. The clean utilization rate of carbon containing waste can be effectively improved, the energy consumption and cost of separate treatments can be reduced, and zero waste emissions can be completely achieved by the comprehensive pyrolysis–gasification two-stage-cycle treatment and resource utilization technology, which is one of the preferred solutions for future resource-saving societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The EU has set the ambitious target of raising the share of EU energy consumption produced from renewable resources to 32% by 2030, with a target of climate neutrality by 2050. The aim of this paper is to assess the role of biomass usage in the context of these targets. The paper identifies the progress made between 2013 and 2022 by focusing on a selection of EU countries. The largest bioenergy increments of 130, 77, and 60 PJ were reported for Poland, Sweden, and the Netherlands. This study evaluates the crucial role of co-generation and heat in EU regions, with biomass usage between 55 and 80% of the combined heat and power (CHP) energy in Nordic countries. The future perspectives for bioenergy based on EU policies, biomass resources, and technical issues were addressed. The EU possesses around 9% of the global biomass supply, ensuring a certain level of biomass resource dependence. Thus, the biomass usage demand in energy production, non-energy sectors, and transport is expected to rise, leading to increments of 13–76% on biomass imports. It appears that bioenergy development is mostly limited by economic issues and uneven support for bioenergy in different EU countries as well as environmental issues. The study shows a promising and sustainable potential of bioenergy in the EU as a renewable energy source while minimizing negative impacts on the environment and the economy. By 2050, liquid biofuels are likely to be increasingly used in the transport sector. Non-energy sector usage of biomass is still in an early stage of development, except for the pulp and paper industry, and significant use of biomass in non-energy sectors seems unlikely in the near future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explored the association between renewable energy uptake and digitalization in the sector by reviewing relevant literature (published 2010–2022), with the aim of identifying the existing utilization of digital technologies within the sector, challenges to adoption, and future prospects. Different search engines (SCOPUS, Web of Science, and Google Scholar) were used to locate relevant papers and documents. The results revealed the high significance of digital technologies in supporting the renewable energy sector, with high costs and security risks representing the key challenges. Most papers reviewed had a positive outlook, but recommended further research and development for effective energy transition and resilient infrastructure. The current drivers of the integration of digital technologies to support the diffusion of renewable energy sources appear to extend beyond energy demand and involve many aspects of sustainability and sustainable development. Compared with previous reviews, this work has unique scope and novelty since it considers the bigger picture of the coupling between digitalization and the renewable energy sector, with a greater focus on critical areas in these two interconnected bodies that need to be addressed. The relatively small sample of relevant papers (69 from 836 hits) located in the literature review confirms the need for more research covering the subject in greater depth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2017, a carbon emissions trading market will be launched nationwide by the China government. Calculating the enterprise carbon emissions is an important prerequisite and basis for trading. This paper discussed types of greenhouse gases, calculation boundaries and methods, energy consumption, carbon emissions, and intensity of a representative integrated pulp and paper mill in China based on China Guidance and Greenhouse Gas Protocol Tools. The results showed that there were 435,000 tonnes (t) of CO2 emissions from that mill in 2014 that did not contain emissions of biomass energy, which was 8 times higher than that of fossil energy. The pulp carbon intensity based on the mill was 0.230 t CO2/Adt, which accounted for 7.50% to 57.4% in other pulps' based on the product. Intensity based on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was 1.090 t CO2e/1000 USD and accounted for 56.8% intensity in the China paper industry. The intensity based on sales accounted for 52.6% in the firstclass enterprise in the developed country. It also showed that intensity was influenced by the species of raw material, energy, and products, which provided the mill with measures for energy saving and emissions reduction to obtain the redundant carbon emissions in the trading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Excellent mechanical and electrical properties of graphene-based paper-like materials are essential for applications in flexible conductors, energy-storage devices, etc. The graphene oxide (GO) supernatant separated by centrifugation and ultrasonication has been used to prepare graphene oxide paper and reduced graphene oxide paper (rGOP) with high strength and conductivity. However, this method has cumbersome steps and low supernatant concentration, which greatly increases time and energy consumption, and is not suitable for rapid batch preparation of high-strength and high-thickness rGOP. Herein, a high-speed mechanical shearing method has been used to efficiently exfoliate graphite oxide suspension into high-concentration GO slurry with large lateral size, and rGOP has been further prepared by blade coating and HI acid chemical reduction. Compared with the product prepared by ultrasonic exfoliation method, the average area of GO sheets obtained via the mechanical shear exfoliation method can reach around 16.31 μm2. As a result, the mechanical properties and conductivity of the prepared rGOP have been increased by 30% and 23.5%, respectively, with the tensile strength and electrical conductivity of 478.2 MPa and 208.4 S/cm being obtained. The developed method is of great significance for the large-scale production and emerging applications of lightweight and high-performance rGOP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]