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In this technical brief, we investigate the feasibility to use a cost-effective system for the study of frictional losses in hydro- and magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) flows. Experiments are performed in rectangular channels with different aspect ratios, whose dimensions range from 500 μm to 1.835 mm. Fabrication is done with conventional technology, and characterization by commercial sensors and open-source electronic prototyping platforms. Water and GaInSn are used as working fluids. GaInSn experiments are performed for one aspect with and without external magnetic field. For these experiments, Reynolds number varies from 80 to 1000. Characterization is performed in terms of the Darcy friction factor. Uncertainty associated with this common fabrication and characterization methodology is presented.

To control the total treatment cost of textile dye effluent a new advanced combined treatment technology has been investigated. Advanced oxidation processes like ozonation have much potential to degrade dye but its main drawback is high cost. To reduce the cost of ozonation for dye degradation and decolourization, ozonation followed by anaerobic biodegradation using upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor was carried out. The synthetic textile wastewater containing Reactive Black 5 has been used in this study by this combined treatment process. The system of ozonation and anaerobic treatment by UASB reactor showed that the chemical oxygen demand (COD) reduction has reached to about 90% and dye removal 94% respectively. Combined treatment enhanced the overall color removal up to 10 on platinum cobalt (Pt–Co) scale. Thus the combined treatment process results in high color, COD and total organic carbon (TOC) removal efficiency which would minimize the overall treatment cost. Dye degradation products were analyzed by ion chromatography (IC) and UV–vis spectroscopy.

This paper addresses the current oil & gas industry need for awareness and how to accelerate use of international standardization efforts, with focus on multi-disciplinary ISO standards and business governance. Qualified compliant use of ISO standards can unlock necessary business value and is a means to achieve cost-efficiency, HSE objectives, and minimize climate impact. The user domain encompasses regulatory bodies, oil and gas companies, drilling companies, engineering companies, equipment manufacturers, research & consultancies. The ISO/TC67 Working Group "Reliability engineering and technology" has responsibility for reliability and cost related ISO standards within the Petroleum, petrochemical and natural gas industries. The portfolio of the multi-disciplinary ISO standards is internationally acknowledged and has recently been updated by many new standards that the global user domain can benefit from to achieve cost reducing technologies. Reliability and cost is part of the equation in innovative technology development processes to enforce quality and minimize risk, and enable new technology meets overall business performance objectives. This paper will give highlights of the following ISO standards and a roadmap for their application: ISO 14224 - Collection and exchange of reliability and maintenance data for equipment ISO 20815 - Production assurance and reliability management ISO 19008 - Standard cost coding system to gas production and processing facilities Company applications are presented to show examples in technology development, project development, and oil & gas field operations. Standards relation to digitalization of oil and gas industry will also be addressed, e g. how "reliability communication" between oil company and supplier can benefit from use of the latest ISO standard 14224. Contractual framing of reliability and Key Performance Indicators will also be presented. This ISO standardization work is based on international expert team efforts by many countries, and in collaboration with IOGP. The work supports the ISO/TC67 Mission: "To create value-added standards for the oil and gas industry", and the ISO/TC67 Vision: "International standards used locally worldwide."

Hyderabad city is an emerging pharmaceutical hub of India. Pharmaceutical effluent contains many organic and inorganic compounds which need to be treated before discharging into natural water bodies or municipal sewers. The disposal of these wastes should be done in a safe, secure and aesthetic way failing which, results in harmful effects on human, plant and animal life. In the present study effluent from a pharmaceutical industry in Hyderabad, manufacturing Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) and solid oral dosage forms is analyzed. It was found to contain large amounts of Dissolved solids, COD, Suspended solids, chlorides and colour. In this paper a comparative study of Chemical coagulation and Electrocoagulation in treating the effluent is made to find a more efficient and cost-effective technology. The results showed that though chemical coagulation has brought a considerable decrease in percentage of COD, suspended solids and chlorides, but the extent of decrease in the Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) is only 14.05 % using Alum and 26.3 % with FeCl3. Whereas electrocoagulation method which has reduced both COD and TDS to greater extent (92.3 % & 91.5 %) proved more efficient with Fe-Al assembly using a lowest current of 0.04 A at a time interval of 15 min. The coagulant consumption is also less in eletrocoagulation compared to chemical coagulation rendering it a cost effective technology.

Image super-resolution (SR) is a widely used and cost-effective technology in remote sensing image processing. Deep learning-based SR methods have shown promising performance, but they are prone to losing texture details. Instead, generative adversarial nets (GAN)-based methods can generate more visually acceptable results. However, GAN-based SR methods are suffering from scene variance and uncontrollable performance of discriminators as well as unstable training. Besides, both these two methods cannot yield arbitrary high-time SR images. To solve these issues, we propose a novel SR method for remote sensing images using C ascade G enerative A dversarial N ets (CGAN) with introduction of content fidelity and scene constraint, which can achieve arbitrary high-time high-quality SR image. More specifically, the scene-constraint item is incorporated to constrain generated feature for avoiding the risk of scene change. Then, content fidelity is introduced to stabilize the training and avoid gradient vanishing. Besides, an edge enhancement module is designed to preserve edge detail and suppress the noise. CGAN with these three components has achieved higher quality SR results than other recent state-of-the-art methods. Compared with these methods, our proposed method outperformed average increments of 7.3% SSIM, 7.3% FSIM and 6.0% MSIM on WHU-RS19 and NWPU-RESISC45 datasets. In addition, the evaluation of GAN-train and GAN-test gained average increments of 6.3% and 4.5% on the WHU-RS19 and AID datasets, respectively.

In the process of energy conservation and emission reduction (ECER) in energy-intensive industries, ECER technologies play a vital role. To formulate efficient and cost-effective technology promotion roadmap, a unified framework is needed to systematically compare the ECER effects and costs in different energy-intensive industries. Since this requires adequate understanding of the technical system in each industry and a large quantity of technical and economic parameters, studies so far have not worked on it. By adopting conservation supply curve method, this article systematically assessed the performance of 141 technologies from six energy-intensive industries in China during 2015–2030. The results revealed that: (1) on the level of all energy-intensive industries as a whole, promoting ECER technologies would reduce 68 Mtce of energy consumption from 2015 to 2020, 123.1 Mtce by 2025, and 201.5 Mtce by 2030. More than 60% of the 141 technologies were cost-effective. The thermal power industry and the petrochemical and chemical industry should be the focus of China's future ECER work while reducing the cost of conserved energy in the non-ferrous metal industry would be a critical task; (2) On the level of each energy-intensive industry, the contribution rates of main production processes or sub-industries during different periods were evaluated, and key ECER technologies that should be emphasized on in each industry were identified; and (3) the 141 technologies were categorized into five groups according to their ECER approaches, and key ECER approaches were energy efficiency technologies, management improvement technologies, and equipment modification technologies in the long term.

Peroxide-acetic acid (Peroxide-HAc) pretreatment is a simplified and cost-effective technology due to its mild conditions without the catalysis of strong acids, which was introduced to treat sugarcane bagasse (SCB) in this paper. Then pretreated SCB was used to produce bioethanol using thermophilic Saccharomyces cerevisiae in deionized water (DW) and sodium citrate buffer solution (SCS) fermentation systems, respectively. Results: showed that peroxide-HAc pretreatment can selectively remove lignin and change morphological structures, thus positively increasing saccharification and fermentation efficiency downstream. SCB pretreated at 100 °C obtained the lowest residual lignin content of 2.88% and achieved the highest ethanol yield of 92.10% (0.45 g/g-biomass) in DW system. In particular, SCS can decrease the residual sugars content of pretreated SCB during simultaneous saccharification and co-fermentation (SSCF) process. The addition of Tween 80 improved SSCF of SCB pretreated at 80 °C likely because Tween 80 can block residual lignin adsorption with enzymes. The concentration of acetic acid and glycerol byproducts from SCB pretreated at 80 °C can be decreased by SCS and DW systems, respectively, comparing to SCS and DW systems with additing Tween 80. This study provided a systematic process route for the bioethanol production by mild pretreatment method.

Agriculture is one of the most energy intensive activities within the European Union. The common absence of electric infrastructure in these rural settings has led to the need for in situ generation in many cases. The existing excess pressures in large pressurised irrigation networks makes the generation of micro hydropower here a possible alternative renewable energy source. Pump-as-turbines have been proposed as a cost-effective technology for such purposes, taking advantage of the excess pressure in pipe networks to produce energy. This paper presents a methodology for the design of a plant for micro hydropower generation in an agricultural farm and outlines the predicted benefits of the installation. These predicted benefits were also compared with the measured performance of the plant for the 2019 irrigation season. The main aim of the plant was to replace a diesel generator that supplied energy to the farm. The excess pressure found in the pipe network varied between 0m and almost 60m. The nominal power of the pump-as-turbine was selected to supply the maximum energy requirements of the farm. The predicted operation time of the plant was estimated at up to 3199 h concentrated between April and September. An annual savings of approximately €2950 and 11 t eCO2 were also estimated. The measured results showed an actual operation time of 2443 h between May and September, as in April the monitoring system was not operational. For this operation time, the savings were €2258 and 8.4 t eCO2. Considering the April theoretical irrigation time obtained, the savings raised up to approximately €2434 and 9.1 teCO2. The return on investment of the installation was computed to be recovered in less than ten years.

This work investigates the effectiveness of ammoniacal nitrogen (NH 4 + -N) removal from contaminated water by adsorptive hollow fiber ceramic membrane (HFCM) derived from naturally made clinoptilolite. The technological value of this work is the simple mechanism of the adsorptive HFCM in removing gaseous ammonia in water by combining adsorption and separation. To test the technical feasibility of this proposed technology, clinoptilolite HFCM was fabricated via phase inversion-based extrusion/sintering technique and characterized by SEM and water permeation flux. The produced HFCM corresponds to the desired morphology of the asymmetric structure (dense and void formations) with outstanding adsorption performance of NH 4 + -N. The effects of the HFCM’s operational parameters on its removal are examined in terms of membrane dosage and isothermal studies. The adsorption isotherm behavior exhibited that the adsorption process fitted the Freundlich isotherm model with outstanding removal performance even at trace concentration of ammonia. The low amount used by HFCM (4.75×10−4m2) resulted in over 96% ammonia removal, indicating a low cost of adsorption process. The regeneration of saturated HFCM suggests an outstanding recovery of the HFCM for its subsequent use for NH 4 + -N removal. This study also reveals the potential of adsorptive HFCM as a simple and cost-effective technology for ammonia removal from wastewater.

The present work proposes a novel dual dummy gate Silicon-on-Insulator Laterally Double Diffused Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (SOI-LDMOS) transistor. TCAD simulation shows considerable promise to enhance the dc, analog/RF, and switching performance than the single dummy gate and conventional SOI-LDMOS transistor. A strong accumulation region (SAR) forms under the optimum biased dummy gates (at the semiconductor surface in the drift region) that assist in increasing the On-current and, thereby, reducing the On-Resistance. The proposed device exhibits ~93.5% improvement in On-current (ION), ~144% increase in transconductance (gm), ~29% reduction in specific On-resistance (RON,sp), ~360% improvement of intrinsic gain compared to the conventional SOI-LDMOS transistor. The dummy gates, which are in short with the source contact at zero potential, act as a field plate, and minimize the gate to drain capacitance due to the shielding effect. Improvement in the cut-off frequency (fT) and the maximum frequency (fMAX) is reported. The proposed device also offers a decrease of the gate to drain charge (QGD) leading to reduction in Figure of Merit RON,sp × QGD by ~31%. The increase of maximum power per unit area by ~52% is reported for power amplifier applications. It is shown that improving the On-State performance by tuning the dummy gate bias gives a simple, new, and cost-effective technology solution for power electronics applications.

The main objective of the present study was to demonstrate microaeration as an effective strategy to boost the biotransformation of four parabens (methylparaben, ethylparaben, propylparaben, and butylparaben) in an upflow anaerobic sludge blanket reactor operated at a short hydraulic retention time (8 h). Moreover, the effect of different airflow rates (1−4 mL min−1) was also assessed from an engineering and microbiological perspective. Low mean removal efficiencies (REs) (14–20 %) were achieved under anaerobic conditions. However, the addition of only 1 mL air min−1 (0.027 L O2 L−1 feed) remarkably boosted the biotransformation of parabens, ensuring mean REs above 85 % for all compounds. In contrast, the increase in the airflow rate had a minor impact on the process, and an apparent saturation in the removal capacity was observed, noticeably from 2 to 4 mL air min−1. The reactor presented high stability throughout the experiment, and microaeration did not impair the organic matter removal and methanogenesis. However, high airflow rates can dilute biogas, compromising its use as a fuel in combined heat and power units. The microaerobic conditions increased both richness and diversity of the reactor’s microbiota, likely favoring the growth of oxygenase-producing microorganisms, which may have played a role in the biotransformation of parabens. Finally, the high REs of parabens reached in the microaerated reactor, a more cost-effective technology, are comparable to those found in high-cost wastewater treatment systems, such as activated sludge and its variants.

Solar distillation technologies offer a viable solution to the need for access to clean and safe drinking water in water-stressed parts of the world. Solar still is a renewable and cost-effective technology with relatively low distilled water output and any attempts in the direction of improving their productivity and efficiency could bring a significant improvement in the quality of life in water-scarce regions. The effect of adding a humidifier-dehumidifier (HDH) system and applying a phase change material like paraffin wax to a simple passive solar still is being investigated in this paper. The performance of the solar still were found to have improved and the modified designs were able to provide a continuous output during the day time. The experiments revealed that by adding phase change materials to stepped solar still with HDH, the production of distilled water is increased by around 84.4% compared to stepped solar still equipped with HDH alone.

Visible light positioning has the potential to be a cost-effective technology for accurate indoor positioning. However, existing approaches often require large amounts of incoming data, usually in the form of high resolution images or dense lighting distributions. Additionally, a line of sight between transmitter and receiver is generally required at all times. In this work, we present a positioning approach that combines measurements from a camera, encoders and a gyroscope. We compare multiple algorithms for fusing these data, namely an extended Kalman filter, a particle filter and a hybrid approach. The end result is a system that provides location estimates even with sparse lighting distributions and temporary outages, yet achieves an average accuracy of 2 to 4 cm. Even in the 95th percentile of the cumulative error distribution, accuracy can be as low as 2 cm and is often lower than 10 cm. Moreover, due to the use of a low-resolution camera (640x480 pixels) and efficient fusion algorithms, the latency is relatively low on a standard laptop (between 5.6 and 21 milliseconds). Even on a low-cost embedded board, latency generally does not exceed 100 milliseconds. We validate our approach experimentally and show that it is robust under a wide range of illumination conditions.

A real-time vehicle monitoring is crucial for effective bridge maintenance and traffic management because overloaded vehicles can cause damage to bridges, and in some extreme cases, it will directly lead to a bridge failure. Bridge weigh-in-motion (BWIM) system as a high performance and cost-effective technology has been extensively used to monitor vehicle speed and weight on highways. However, the dynamic effect and data noise may have an adverse impact on the bridge responses during and immediately following the vehicles pass the bridge. The fast Fourier transform (FFT) method, which can significantly purify the collected structural responses (dynamic strains) received from sensors or transducers, was used in axle counting, detection, and axle weighing technology in this study. To further improve the accuracy of the BWIM system, the field-calibrated influence lines (ILs) of a continuous multi-girder bridge were regarded as a reference to identify the vehicle weight based on the modified Moses algorithm and the least squares method. In situ experimental results indicated that the signals treated with FFT filter were far better than the original ones, the efficiency and the accuracy of axle detection were significantly improved by introducing the FFT method to the BWIM system. Moreover, the lateral load distribution effect on bridges should be considered by using the calculated average ILs of the specific lane individually for vehicle weight calculation of this lane.

Aqueous rechargeable zinc–iodine batteries are emerging high-safety and cost-effective technology for large-scale energy storage. However, the high solubility of discharge species polyiodide in aqueous electrolyte is the major challenge for iodine cathode. Herein, the polyiodide doped conductive polymer cathode is proposed to suppress the dissolution of active materials in electrolyte. High reversible capacity of 160 mAh/g and remarkable cycling stability with capacity retention of 79% after 700 cycles at 1.5 A/g are achieved.

Routine analytical methods are constrained in the speed of application, sample throughput and inability to determine the right bioavailable loading of pollutants. Microbial biosensor technology resolved these constraints by offering the most rapid, sensitive, reliable and cost-effective technology, especially in a bioavailable context. This study describes the growth characterisation and optimisation of three different lux-marked biosensors and their induction bioassay, thus testing their responses to doses of target hydrocarbons (naphthalene, toluene, Isopropylbenzene) and solution of mixed hydrocarbons. These biosensors, Pseudomonas fluorescence HK44, Escherichia coli HMS174 and Pseudomonas putidaTVA8 harbours luxCDABE reporter genes coupled to induction by hydrocarbons. Biosensors harvested at optimal exponential phase and induced with hydrocarbon using the optimised assay conditions are highly sensitive and responsive to their inducers in a proportionate dose-dependent status. The established dose responses of these catabolic biosensors signify the prospect of extrapolation for estimating the genuine contamination loading of pollutants for environmental relevance. However, several factors may contribute to the quenching effect at high concentration of inducers. Robust responsiveness to mixed hydrocarbon solution has been also realised accentuating its feasibility in analysing of real environmental samples containing heterogenous pollutants. This study emphasises the suitability of bioluminescent bacterial biosensors for pollutants analysis and notably the detection of soluble bioavailable fractions of diverse hydrocarbons, hence, serves as a reliable bioindicator of hydrocarbon pollution in an environment. Even so, the real value of biosensors is for a suite of ecologically justified biosensors to be applied in complementary combinations with other focused analytical or chemical methods for broad and resourceful inference.

Reducing input of phosphorus is the key step for control of eutrophication and algal blooming in freshwater lakes. Adsorption technology is a cost-effective technology for phosphate removal in water for the purpose. Thus, in this study, a novel Fe–Mn–La tri-metal composite sorbent was developed, and then evaluated for phosphate removal. The results showed that the maximum adsorption capacity could be approached to 61.80 mg g−1 at 25°C under pH of 6.03. Adsorption of phosphate by Fe–Mn–La tri-metal composite adsorbent fitted better by pseudo-second-order kinetic equation and Langmuir model, which suggested that the adsorption process was surface chemical reactions and mainly in a monolayer coverage manner. The thermodynamic study indicated that the adsorption reaction was an endothermic process. The phosphate removal gradually decreased with the increasing of pH from 3.02 to 11.00. The sequence of coexisting anions competing with phosphates was that CO32− > Cl− > SO42− > NO3−. Dissolved organic matter, fulvic acid as a representative, would also decrease adsorption capacities of phosphate by Fe–Mn–La tri-metal composite adsorbents. Adsorption capacity would be decreased with increasing addition of adsorbents, while removal efficiency would be increased in this process. The Fe–Mn–La tri-metal composite adsorbent showed a good reusability when applied to removal of dissolved phosphate from aqueous solutions. The Fourier transform infrared spectrometer and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analyses indicated that some hydroxyl groups (–OH) on the surface of adsorbent were replaced by the adsorbed PO43−, HPO42−, or H2PO4−. Aggregative results showed that the novel Fe–Mn–La tri-mental composite sorbent is a very promising adsorbent for the removal of phosphate from aqueous solutions.

Sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) are now intensively developed as a cost-effective technology alternative to lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) for large-scale energy storage because of their various advantages such as huge abundance of sodium resources, highly safe and significantly low cost. Among many other cathode materials, layered 3d-transition metal oxides (LTMO-NaxMO2, x ≤ 1 and M = Co, Ni, Mn, Cr, Cu, Fe and V) have gained an enormous interest and attractive attention among researchers because of their low-cost, high energy density and ease of synthesis. In addition, LTMOs offer higher reversible capacities because of relatively lower molecular weights; however, complex phase transformations limit their cycling life. Based on the previous research, it was examined that the crystalline phase of LTMO highly influences the electrochemical performance of SIBs; therefore, this review mainly focuses on the latest advances of various crystalline phases such as P2-type, P3-type, O3-type and biphase/multiphase materials and its strength as well as future prospects and challenges.

The indiscriminate exploitation of fossil fuels over a period of two centuries has eventually led us to a juncture where search for alternate energy sources and sustainable development has become inevitable. Solar energy remains the most reliable renewable energy source, efficient harnessing of which can serve to meet the future energy demands. Photo-assisted water splitting to generate hydrogen, a potential clean fuel has been the focus of current research in this field. Design and development of suitable materials for efficient solar energy conversion remains the major challenge to be tackled in this aspect. A cost-effective technology for conversion of solar energy is still a distant dream. The present paper attempts a general overview of the basic principles of water splitting with special focus on porphyrin-based systems as promising water splitting systems.

Due to the variability of CO2 emission sources, proper selection of viable and cost-effective technology for carbon capture is highly critical. In this work, a comparative economic analysis of phys...

Healthcare industries generate enormous amount of data, so called big data that accommodates hidden knowledge or pattern for decision making. The huge volume of data is used to make decision which is more accurate than intuition. Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) detects mistakes, finds appropriate data, checks assumptions and determines the correlation among the explanatory variables. In the context, EDA is considered as analysing data that excludes inferences and statistical modelling. Analytics is an essential technique for any profession as it forecast the future and hidden pattern. Data analytics is considered as a cost effective technology in the recent past and it plays an essential role in healthcare which includes new research findings, emergency situations and outbreaks of disease. The use of analytics in healthcare improves care by facilitating preventive care and EDA is a vital step while analysing data. In this paper, the risk factors that causes heart disease is considered and predicted using K-means algorithm and the analysis is carried out using a publicly available data for heart disease. The dataset holds 209 records with 8 attributes such as age, chest pain type, blood pressure, blood glucose level, ECG in rest, heart rate and four types of chest pain. To predict the heart disease, K-means clustering algorithm is used along with data analytics and visualization tool. The paper discusses the pre-processing methods, classifier performances and evaluation metrics. In the result section, the visualized data shows that the prediction is accurate.

Plant incineration ash is the final product from the remediation of multi-metal contaminated soils by the phytoextraction process. The content of heavy metals in plant ash was found to be higher than the regulatory criteria and it was thus classified as hazardous waste. So far, no eco-friendly and cost-effective technology has been developed for the management of this residue. Herein, a cleaner strategy of bioleaching combined with brine leaching of multi-metals from plant ash was developed. The bioleaching results indicated that 88.7% (Zn), 93.2% (Cd), 99.9% (Mn) and 13.8% (Pb) were achieved under optimum conditions of Fe(II) concentration 6.0 g L−1, pH 1.8 and pulp density 15% (w/v). Subsequently, the introduction of brine leaching using 200 g L−1 NaCl significantly increased Pb recovery to 70.6% under conditions of 15% (w/v) pulp density, thereby ultimately achieving deep recovery of all metals. An investigation of the mechanism revealed that H+ attack and microorganisms were the dominant mechanism for bioleaching of Zn, Cd and Mn, and the bioleaching kinetics of Zn in ash were controlled by interface mass transfer and diffusion across the product layer. Risk assessment tests indicated that the leached residues could pass the TCLP test standard and be safely reused as nonhazardous materials. These findings demonstrated that the two-stage leaching strategy was feasible and promising for multi-metal removal from plant ash.

Capacitive deionization (CDI) technologies have gained intense attention for water purification and desalination in recent years. Inexpensive and widely available porous carbon materials have enabled the fast growth of electrosorption research, highlighting the promise of CDI as a potentially cost-effective technology to remove ions. Whereas the main focus of CDI has been on bulk desalination, there has been a recent shift towards electrosorption for selective ion separations. Heavy metals are pollutants that can have severe health impacts and are present in both industrial wastewater and groundwater leachates. Heavy metal ions, such as chromium, cadmium, or arsenic, are of great concern to traditional treatment technologies, due to their low concentration and the presence of competing species. The modification/functionalization of porous carbon and recent developments of faradaic and redox-active materials have offered a new avenue for selective ion-binding of heavy metal contaminants. Here, we review the progress in electrosorptive technologies for heavy metal separations. We provide an overview of the wide applicability of carbon-based electrodes for heavy metal removal. In parallel, we highlight the trend toward modification of carbon materials, new developments in faradaic interfaces, and the underlying physico-chemical mechanisms that promote selective heavy metal separations.

Textile industry is a major contribution of wastewater that containing pollutant including dye, chemical substance etc., Manufacturing of textile and fabric give the total approximately more than 7 × 105 annually. Recorded, about one thousand tons of dye using in textile processing and finishing been discharge into natural stream and water bodies. Due to environmental concern by many parties, all method and studies been discovered through cost effective technology to produce the absorbance that capable to remove pollutants and heavy metal from water bodies. The efficient cure are found recently and trending of usage of semiconductor (photocatalyst). Catalysis can be considered as the most valuable principle on industrial that deal with wastewater treatment. Catalysis been categorized in twelve principle of green chemistry. Green chemistry principles are set in purpose of elimination or reduce the amount of usage hazardous substances of chemical in design, manufacturing and application of product. This principle also highlighted on hazard reduction while designing new chemical process. Recently, nano catalyst commercialized and been used widely due to high activity, efficiency, stability and productivity.

Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) is a promising cost-effective technology for the privacy confined military applications and healthcare applications like remote health monitoring, telemedicine, and e-health services. The use of a Software-Defined Network (SDN) approach improves the control and management processes of the complex structured WBANs and also provides higher flexibility and dynamic network structure. To seamless routing performance in SDN-based WBAN, the energy-efficiency problems must be tackled effectively. The main contribution of this paper is to develop a novel Energy Optimized Congestion Control based on Temperature Aware Routing Algorithm (EOCC-TARA) using Enhanced Multi-objective Spider Monkey Optimization (EMSMO) for SDN-based WBAN. This algorithm overcomes the vital challenges, namely energy-efficiency, congestion-free communication, and reducing adverse thermal effects in WBAN routing. First, the proposed EOCC-TARA routing algorithm considers the effects of temperature due to the thermal dissipation of sensor nodes and formulates a strategy to adaptively select the forwarding nodes based on temperature and energy. Then the congestion avoidance concept is added with the energy-efficiency, link reliability, and path loss for modeling the cost function based on which the EMSMO provides the optimal routing. Simulations were performed, and the evaluation results showed that the proposed EOCC-TARA routing algorithm has superior performance than the traditional routing approaches in terms of energy consumption, network lifetime, throughput, temperature control, congestion overhead, delay, and successful transmission rate.

Due to the deliberate disposal of industrial waste, a great amount of petroleum hydrocarbons pollute the soil and aquatic environments. Bioremediation that depends on the microorganisms in the removal of pollutants is more efficient and cost-effective technology. In this study, five rhizobacteria were isolated from Phragmites australis roots and exposed to real wastewater from Al-Daura refinery with 70 mg/L total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) concentration. The five selected rhizobacteria were examined in a biodegradation test for seven days to remove TPH. The results showed that 80% TPH degradation as the maximum value by Sphingomonas Paucimobilis as identified with Vitek® 2 Compact (France).

Lipid productivity of microalgae depends considerably on the method of its cultivation. In the present study, a two-stage culture strategy was conducted to cultivate Chlorella vulgaris to enhance lipid productivity. In the first stage, C. vulgaris was grown in the synthetic medium to obtain maximum biomass concentration. Wastewater is used as a medium for growing microalgae to have commercial and environmental aptitudes for biomass production. The nutrient removal efficiencies were 80.5% (COD), 70% (TN), and 78% (TP). In the second stage, the synergistic effects of nitrogen and NaCl concentration on the lipid productivity was investigated by response surface methodology (RSM) for 2 days. The optimum conditions for relatively high lipid productivity (up to 80 mg L−1 day−1) were 2.6 mg L−1 of nitrogen, 6.3 g L−1 of NaCl, and 4.9 g L−1 of biomass concentration. The value which was predicted by model was in good agreement with the experimental value, as it was determined by the validation experiments. Saturated fatty acid composition was increased by 27.3% under optimized medium compared with synthetic medium, which is very suitable for biodiesel production. According to the above results, it is concluded that the combination of multiple stress conditions can lead to a cost-effective technology of microalgae lipid production.

Catalytic oxidation is an efficient and cost-effective technology to eliminate HCHO, and MnO2 shows excellent performance towards this kind of reactions. In this work, a birnessite type manganese dioxide nanoparticles modified silica-doped titanium dioxide (MnO2@SiO2–TiO2 ) nanofibrous membranes were successfully synthesized by using an electrospinning technique and liquid phase synthesis . It is found that MnO 2@SiO2–TiO2-4 nanofibrous membrane showed the best catalytic activity for HCHO removal. The as-fabricated nanofibrous membranes exhibited good and reversible catalytic oxidation activity towards formaldehyde, and more than 90% of the catalytic performance could remain after 5 testing cycles. The successfully constructed MnO2 nanoparticles decorated soft SiO2–TiO2 nanofibrous membranes, which can be a great promise for effectively solving the problem of environmental remediation.

Fresnel-based concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) solar power systems have been proven effective to significantly enhance the photoelectric conversion efficiency, but a standard-size solar plant will require an extremely large amount of polymer radial Fresnel lenses. Roll-to-roll (R2R) manufacturing is a high-throughput technology to mass produce high-quality functional optical polymer film. In this paper, we have firstly studied a complete manufacturing cycle for R2R embossing of radial Fresnel lens polymer film for CPV systems, in terms of polymer lens design, roller mold machining, R2R embossing and optical performance test. Instead of wrapping an electroplated metal sheet onto the roller in conventional R2R process, the lens pattern array is directly machined using a 5-axis ultra-precision machining system to guarantee its surface quality and accuracy. Optical performance evaluation for the manufactured polymer film using a reference solar cell is conducted, and results have shown that radial Fresnel lens on the polymer film can achieve a sunlight concentration ratio 3.9 × times that of linear lenses with a much smaller receiving area. This study has explored the feasibility for R2R embossing of optical polymer film, an industry-applicable and cost-effective technology for mass production of high-quality Fresnel lenses to be used in high-efficiency CPV systems.

This study aims at analyzing and comparing several indices that evaluate the performance of different grid connected photovoltaic technologies, namely amorphous silicon (a-Si), Polycrystalline silicon (pc-Si), and Monocrystalline silicon (mc-Si) generating around 2 kWp each and set up a forecast studies for future perspectives. These technologies are connected to a low voltage (400 V) three phase electrical grid of Al Akhawayn University (33° North, 5° West) facing south on a flat surface, 32° tilted with zero azimuth, and without including any tracking system. This work is done within the framework of Propre.ma project aiming at establishing a photovoltaic yield maps throughout Morocco. The experimental and theoretical horizontal irradiances of Ifrane's region, simulated with the Davies and Hay model on the MATLAB's software, are compared in the following study. Besides, the evaluation of different technologies is based on the (annual/monthly/daily) AC energy output, the performance ratio, the system efficiency, and the capacity factor that are calculated and measured from data gathered between October 2014 and the end of 2018. An economic analysis was carried out in order to define the levelized cost of electricity of the three technologies. Eventually, the obtained results confirm that the polycrystalline technology is the most cost-effective technology for the region of Ifrane.

Water stress has become a perennial concern in most of the developing countries due to rapid urbanization and population growth. As the growing population requires more fresh water and better ways for wastewater disposal, the demand for wastewater reclamation has increased drastically in recent years. Wastewater, either raw or treated, is being widely used for agricultural irrigation in developing countries, which cause a serious threat to human health mainly because of its pathogenic content. One of the alternative methods to treat wastewater and make it reusable for agricultural irrigation is to implement constructed wetland (CW); a sustainable and cost-effective technology that is applicable for the elimination of both pollutants and pathogens from wastewater. Despite its wide application, the role of macrophytes that form an integral part of CW and specific mechanisms involved in pathogen removal by them is still barely understood due to complexities involved and influencing factors. This has, therefore, attracted various scientific studies to reveal further functional mechanisms involved in vegetated CW to increase its proficiencies. This review paper illustrates the comparative studies of different CW and their pathogen removal efficiencies with major emphasis on macrophytes involved and factors influencing related mechanism. Further, the paper also covers detailed information on the enteric pathogens present in wastewater and the associated health risks involved in its reuse. The ultimate objective is to further clarify the role of CW in enteric pathogen removal and its efficiency for wastewater purification in perspective with safe reuse in agriculture.

Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) have long held the promise of being a cost-effective technology for the energy-neutral treatment of wastewater. However, successful pilot-scale demonstrations for this technology are still limited to very few. Here, we present a large-scale MFC system, composed of 12 MFCs with a total volume of 110 L, successfully treating swine wastewater at a small educational farm. The system was operated for over 200 days in continuous mode with hydraulic residence time of 4 hr. Very stable electrochemical and waste treatment performance was observed with up to 65% of chemical oxygen demand (COD) removed and a maximum treatment rate of 5.0 kg COD/m3 .day. Robust microbial enrichment was performed and adapted to metabolize and transform a diversity of compounds present. The Net Energy Recovery (NER = 0.11 kWhr/kg COD) is not only competitive with conventional cogeneration processes, but is in fact sufficient to sustain the operational energy requirements of the system. PRACTITIONER POINTS: This study demonstrates the design and operation of a large-scale microbial fuel cells (MFC) system for continuous treatment of swine wastewater. The system achieved a high chemical oxygen demand removal rate within a short hydraulic residence time. This study moves one-step closer to applying MFC technology for real wastewater treatment.

Optical transmission has emerged as the most cost-effective technology to implement high-bandwidth based communications and to transmit the huge volume of data with low latency. Fog computing extends cloud computing to improve efficiency and reduces the amount of data to be transferred to the cloud for data processing, analysis, and storage etc. In this paper, a new fog layer among optical elements is proposed that utilizes the resources of the optical network. It uses passive optical network (PON), optical line terminals (OLTs) and optical network units (ONUs) to deliver cloud-based services more effectively with minimum latency. A large number of jobs and limited resources in fog layer lead to the deadlock that affects the Quality of Service (QoS) and reliability in heterogeneous fog and cloud environment. Therefore, Social Network Analysis (SNA) based deadlock manager is proposed with a new concept of Free Resource Fog (FRF) that helps to remove deadlock by collecting available free resources from all running jobs. In order to utilize resources and minimize the response time of the submitted job, a rule-based algorithm is proposed that assigns priorities to the jobs and provides resources accordingly from fog and cloud. In addition, energy consumption and latency measure are presented those reflects the QoS as well as reliability to end users. Gephi is used for the implementation of SNA based deadlock management whereas Cloudsim is used to evaluate the utilization of fog and cloud computing resources using Resource Pool Manager (RPM). Finally, we conclude that optimum resource utilization and latency measures can enable future computing with optical fog systems.

Fertilizer drawn forward osmosis (FDFO) is a cost-effective technology for brackish water desalination. The diluted fertilizer draw solution can be used to supply nutrients to crops instead of separating it from the desalinated water. This work evaluates the performance of the FDFO using four fertilizer draw solutions with various concentrations (1.0, 1.5, 2.0 mol/L) and a polyamide thin film composite (TFC) FO membrane for brackish water desalination. The results revealed that KCl fertilizer draw solution achieved the highest water flux and adequate reverse salt flux as compared to other fertilizer draw solution. The mixture KCl + KNO3 and KH2PO4 fertilizer draw solution generated the lowest water permeation and reverse salt flux. KH2PO4 draw solute promoted the growth of salt scaling which affected the membrane productivity in terms of water flux. The negatively charge of the membrane surface was responsible for precipitation of salt on the selective layer. This influenced the performance and resulted in low water permeation and minimum loss of nutrients in the fertilizer draw solution. The advantage of FDFO is in not needing a recovery step to reconcentrate the draw solution, instead using diluted draw solution as a supplement to irrigation water via fertigation.

The effect of the concentration ratio on the performance of parabolic trough and central receiver collectors with integrated transparent insulation materials (TIMs) is analyzed in this work. A model based on optical, energy, and exergy analyses is developed to determine thermal and second law efficiencies of concentrated solar collectors as a function of the absorber temperature and concentration ratio. The results are compared with the respective traditional collector configurations without TIM. In general, high concentration ratios are fundamental to maintain high efficiencies. The incorporation of a TIM into concentrated solar collectors leads to higher thermal efficiencies at high operating temperatures even at low concentration ratios. An equivalent second law efficiency to that of the reference collector configuration can be achieved at lower concentration ratios by incorporating a TIM in parabolic trough or a TIM and a glass envelope in central receiver collectors. The idea of using a TIM deserves further exploration as it seems to be a promising alternative that contributes to a more efficient and cost-effective technology.

Biodegradation was regarded an environmentally benign and cost-effective technology for formaldehyde (CH2 O) removal. However, the biotoxicity of CH2 O inhibited microbial activity and decreased removal performance. We developed a novel heterotopic CH2 O biodegradation process that combined bioelectrochemical system (BES) and UV/H2 O2 . Instead of exogenous addition, H2 O2 was biosynthesized with electron transferred from electrochemically active bacteria. Heterotopic biodegradation of CH2 O was more efficient and faster than in situ biodegradation, as confirmed by 69%-308% higher removal efficiency and 98% shorter degradation time. Operated under optimal conditions for 30 min, which are optical distance of 2 cm, initial H2 O2 concentration of 102 mg/L, and pH 3, heterotopic biodegradation removed 78%, 73%, 49%, and 30% of CH2 O with 6, 8, 10, and 20 mg/L initial concentration. Mild formation of hydroxyl radicals from UV/H2 O2 is beneficial to sustainable CH2 O degradation and efficient H2 O2 utilization. Heterotopic biodegradation is a promising technology for efficient degradation of other organic compounds with biological toxicity. PRACTITIONER POINTS: H2 O2 biosynthesis through electrochemically active bacteria (EAB) served as source of ·OH for CH2 O removal in UV/H2 O2 . Heterotopic CH2 O biodegradation avoided the biotoxicity of CH2 O. Heterotopic biodegradation of CH2 O saved 98% time than in-situ biodegradation. Heterotopic CH2 O biodegradation improved 69%-308% efficiency than in-situ.

An integrated process of cellulase production and pretreatment employing Piptoporus betulinus was proposed to accomplish economic feasibility of lignocellulosic ethanol. After 24 days of cultivation, the maximum loss of weight and hemicellulose of rice straw was 21.25% and 24.79%, respectively. The cellulose was degraded slightly and exposed. Furthermore, the modified lignin led to the weak interaction between lignin and hemicellulose. The optimized enzyme production for CMCase activity (58.37 U g−1 substrate) and FPase activity (7.43 U g−1 substrate) were obtained on the 12th day and the 18th day, respectively. Whereas, the highest reducing sugar yield of rice straw (392.96 mg g−1) was obtained on the 24th day, which was 2.82 times higher than that of the control with the reduced cellulase dosage of 37.15%. In this study pretreatment, cellulase production and enzymatic hydrolysis were coupled into one process, which opens an avenue for environmentally friendly and cost effective technology in lignocellulosic ethanol production.

Triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) is a new emerging and cost-effective technology for harvesting water wave energy because of its unmatchable performance in low frequency and randomly directed motions. Here, we report an approach that significantly increased the output power of spherical TENGs by optimizing both materials and structural design. Fabricated with an acrylic hollow sphere as its shell and a rolling flexible liquid/silicone as the soft core, the soft-contact spherical triboelectric nanogenerator (SS-TENG) presents up to 10-fold enhancement to the maximum output charge compared to that of a conventional Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) based hard-contact one, which is resulted from the significantly increased contact area. Besides, the output is tunable through controlling the softness of the liquid/silicone core. Our finding provides a new optimization methodology for TENGs and enable its more promising usage in harvesting large-scale blue energy from water wave in oceans as well as feeble but ubiquitous wind energy.

Long-term planning for replacement of fossil fuel energy technologies with renewables is of great importance for achieving GHG emission reduction targets. The current study is focused on developing a five-year mathematical model for finding the optimal sizing of renewable energy technologies for achieving certain CO2 emission reduction targets. A manufacturing industrial facility which uses CHP for electricity generation and natural gas for heating is considered as the base case in this work. Different renewable energy technologies are developed each year to achieve a 4.53% annual CO2 emission reduction target. The results of this study show that wind power is the most cost-effective technology for reducing emissions in the first and second year with a cost of 44 and 69 CAD per tonne of CO2, respectively. Hydrogen, on the other hand, is more cost-effective than wind power in reducing CO2 emissions from the third year on. The cost of CO2 emission reduction with hydrogen doesn't change drastically from the first year to the fifth year (107 and 130 CAD per tonne of CO2). Solar power is a more expensive technology than wind power for reducing CO2 emissions in all years due to lower capacity factor (in Ontario), more intermittency (requiring mores storage capacity), and higher investment cost. A hybrid wind/battery/hydrogen energy system has the lowest emission reduction cost over five years. The emission reduction cost of such hybrid system increases from 44 CAD per tonne of CO2 in the first year to 156 CAD per tonne of CO2 in the fifth year. The developed model can be used for long-term planning of energy systems for achieving GHG emission targets in a regions/country which has fossil fuel-based electricity and heat generation infrastructure.

Layer-by-layer (LbL) solution processing is a cost-effective technology for the large-scale fabrication of organic solar cells (OSCs). In this work, LbL OSCs were fabricated using PTQ10/J71 as donors and ITC6-IC/IDIC/MeIC/ITCPTC/ITIC as non-fullerene acceptors (NFAs) without using orthogonal solvents and appropriate co-solvents. Compared with traditional bulk heterojunction (BHJ) OSCs, the corresponding solution-processed LbL devices exhibited higher or comparable power conversion efficiencies (PCEs), which had the advantages of reduced energy loss, stronger absorption spectra, better vertical phase separation, partially increased charge transport property and charge collection efficiency. Furthermore, taking the J71/ITC6-IC and PTQ10/IDIC LbL systems as examples, we fabricated large-area LbL OSCs using the doctor-blading process, which is closer to the roll-to-roll (R2R) technology. Importantly, both OSCs based on J71/ITC6-IC and PTQ10/IDIC LbL with an active area of 1.00 cm2 demonstrated encouraging PCEs of over 10%, which is the record efficiency for large-area LbL OSCs reported in the literature to date. Our work indicates that the solution-processed LbL approach not only presents good generality and high device performance, but also is a superior alternative to the BHJ method for the initial evaluation of photovoltaic materials and the industrial production of R2R OSCs.

Humic substances (HSs) are a group of complex macromolecular polymeric compounds originating from the decomposition of plant residuals and other organic matter. Within the presence of micro-pollutants and heavy metals, HSs negatively act upon potable water quality by contributing to aesthetic problems such as yellowish or brownish color and annoying taste and odor. They are also responsible for re-growth of pathogenic microorganisms and fouling of membranes in water distribution systems. More importantly, these high-molecular-weight polymers have been noted to be the major contributor to the formation of disinfection by-products (DBPs) such as trihalomethanes (THMs) and haloacetic acids (HAAs). Considering these harmful effects, removal of HSs is one of the significant tasks in drinking water treatment. For this purpose, this study aimed to explore the effects of various operating parameters (initial concentration, initial pH, electrical conductivity, pulse time, pulse number, and process time) on the humic acid (HA) removal efficiency and energy consumption. In this study, a new current supply method called alternating pulse current electrocoagulation-flotation (APC-ECF) process was proposed, and a detailed comparative optimization of four different ECF processes (direct current (DC)-simple electrode, DC-perforated electrode, pulse current-simple electrode, and pulse current-perforated electrode) was conducted within the framework of Taguchi-based experimental design methodology. According to scanning electron microscopy (SEM), the morphology of electrode surfaces with APC and perforated electrode showed less disordered (irregular) pores and a regular structure of aluminum compared to the DC, which confirmed the difference in the corrosion rates. Moreover, the proposed APC-ECF method led to the production of less dewatered and dense sludge. The results of the performance analysis revealed that the APC with a perforated electrode provided 3.2-fold lower energy consumption and 2.5-fold lower aluminum consumption compared to the DC with a simple electrode. Considering the expenses associated with power consumption and sludge disposal costs for the electrocoagulation unit, the experimental findings corroborated that the proposed APC-ECF process could be used as a promising and cost-effective technology in water treatment for the removal of HSs.

Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) have received much attention due to their potential application in driving portable electronics. Despite the fast development of this technology, improving their performances in a simple manner still remains a great challenge. In this work, a heart-like micro-nanofiber based wearable triboelectric nanogenerator (HMN-TENG) with high performances is demonstrated. The three-dimensional (3D) secondary heart-like structure is designed and self-assembled on an electrospun poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) fiber based tribonegative layer, and this structure can match the depressed porous and ravine-like structures on the tribopositive layer. The HMN-TENG delivers the voltage, current density and power density outputs of up to 1063 V, 97 mA m−2 and 14.8 W m−2, respectively. The high outputs stem from the joint effect between the heart-like structure and the porous structure, which enlarges the effective contact area via their high surface roughness and the “occlusion effect”. Furthermore, the practicability of the HMN-TENG is verified by driving 595 light-emitting diodes (LEDs), a scientific calculator and a timer. The washability is proved by comparing its voltages before and after washing ten times as well as soaking in water for a week. The design offers a solution for performance enhancement of wearable TENGs, and the approach presents a simple and cost-effective technology.

Human pluripotent stem cell derived endothelial cells (hPSC-ECs) are of great value for studying and treating vascular diseases. However, manufacturing high quantity and quality hPSC-ECs with current cell culture technologies remains very challenging. Here, we report a novel method that can manufacture hPSC-ECs in scalable and cell-friendly microenvironments to address this challenge. Using this method, hPSCs are expanded and differentiated into ECs in microscale alginate hydrogel tubes. The hydrogel tubes protect cells from the highly variable hydrodynamic conditions and critical hydrodynamic stresses in the culture vessel and limit the cell mass less than the diffusion limits (of human tissue) to ensure efficient mass transport. The hydrogel tubes provide uniform and friendly microenvironments for cells to grow. This novel design leads to extremely high production efficiency. We showed that hPSC-ECs could be produced in 10 days with high viability (>90%), high purity (>80%) and high yield (∼5.0 × 108 cells per mL of microspace). The yield is about 250 times that of the current-state-of-the-art. hPSC-ECs made in these hydrogel tubes had similar in vitro and in vivo functions to hPSC-ECs generated by conventional cell culture methods. This simple, scalable, efficient, defined and cost-effective technology will make hPSC-ECs broadly available and affordable for various biomedical applications.

Among various groundwater heat pump (GWHP) system configurations, the single-well circulation (SWC) groundwater heat pump system is totally different with other conventional GWHP systems. In recent years, the SWC system has gained increasing interest due to the fact that it is a cost-effective technology providing large quantities of heating and cooling to buildings. The performance of a SWC system is closely related to the hydrogeological and thermogeological properties. Also, the proper system design and installation are crucial to maintain long-term sustainability and efficiency. In this work, a series of scenarios were simulated to evaluate the influence of different parameters on the outlet temperature evolution and efficiency of a SWC system. It was found that the W-S mode with active cooling will be beneficial to the efficiency of the heat pump and the recovery of the subsurface. It is also demonstrated that the sealed section length plays the most influential role in the design of a SWC system. In addition, the present of groundwater flow will have positive effect on the system performance. In contrast to other factors, the thermal conductivity, volumetric heat capacity and porosity are considered to have a minor influence on the sustainability and efficiency of the system.

Overall water splitting based on particulate photocatalysts is an easily constructed and cost-effective technology for the conversion of abundant solar energy into clean and renewable hydrogen energy on a large scale. This promising technology can be achieved in a one-step excitation system using a single photocatalyst or via a Z-scheme process based on a pair of photocatalysts. Ideally, such photocatalysis will proceed with charge separation and transport unaffected by recombination and trapping, and surface catalytic processes will not involve undesirable reactions. This review summarizes the basics of overall water splitting via both one-step excitation and Z-scheme processes, with a focus on standard methods of determining photocatalytic performance. Various surface engineering strategies applied to photocatalysts, such as cocatalyst loading, surface morphology control, surface modification and surface phase junctions, have been developed to allow efficient one-step excitation overall water splitting. In addition, numerous visible-light-responsive photocatalysts have been successfully utilized as H2-evolution or O2-evolution photocatalysts in Z-scheme overall water splitting. Prototype particulate immobilization systems with photocatalytic performances comparable to or drastically higher than those of particle suspension systems suggest the exciting possibility of the large-scale production of low-cost renewable solar hydrogen.

Digitalization is widely accepted as a principal technological strategy and is expected to vastly impact and transform industry, predominantly by a substantial improvement of the entire value chain. However, its implementation process remains slow, in particular for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), as they tend to have misconceptions about the complexity and expense of digitalization. The purpose of this research is to analyze factors that affect Brandenburg-State, DEU SMEs in their decision making process for an effective implementation of digital technologies in their daily business routine. The results of this study are based on a survey that was conducted in cooperation with fifty SMEs, which currently face problems in the areas of enterprise resource planning (ERP), CAD/CAM, automation, logistics and production/factory planning. Ten of these SMEs have decided to invest in digitalization measures and started the implementation process. Three of them were chosen for the case study to evaluate potential benefits, trade-offs and barriers hampering the implementation of digitalization technologies. These three companies are considered representative items, since their needs and measures investigated were identical to most of the companies of this survey. It was found that the overwhelming majority of the companies regard ERP implementation as their highest priority when investing in the most cost-effective technology.

In recent years, capacitive deionization (CDI) has emerged as an energy efficient and cost-effective technology for the desalination of brackish water. However, high energy consumption and poor desalting efficiency at high salinity levels have hampered the application of CDI for seawater (∼35 000 mg L-1). A novel method of CDI termed hybrid capacitive deionization (HCDI) employs the use of a faradaic electrode paired with a capacitive electrode. Doing so increases the salt removal capacity to approximately three times that of conventional activated carbon (AC) materials (∼10 mg g-1). Herein, we report experimental results of our HCDI cell using free-standing Na2Ti3O7-CNT@reduced graphene oxide (NCNT@rGO) film as a binder-free negative and activated carbon@reduced graphene oxide (AC@rGO) film as the positive electrode. The HCDI cell is operated under a constant current mode. During desalination, sodium ions are intercalated into the negative electrode (NCNT@rGO) whereas chloride ions are adsorbed onto the surface of the positive electrode (AC@rGO). We observed a high removal capacity of 129 mg g-1 at the low energy consumption of 0.4 W h g-1 for a salt concentration of ∼3000 mg L-1 at 50 ml min-1 flow rate. The higher performance of our electrodes over conventional ones (∼109 mg g-1, 0.68 W h g-1) is attributed to the absence of binders or conductive additives and the unique nano-architectured sandwich structure of NCNT@rGO. The advantageous features of our electrodes shed new insight into the development of CDI materials and show promise for low-cost, scalable systems.

Phytoremediation is a potential cost-effective technology for remediating heavy metal-contaminated soils. This method was used to evaluate the biomass and accumulation of copper (Cu) and cadmium (Cd) of plant species grown in contaminated soil and their biological and physical effects on the soil. In co-contaminated soils with copper (Cu) and cadmium (Cd), a three-year field experiment was conducted by planting four plant species in the co-contaminated acidic soil treated with hydroxyapatite. The four species produced different amounts of biomass in this order: Pennisetum sp. > Elsholtzia splendens > Setaria lutescens > Sedum plumbizincicola. Over three growing seasons, the best accumulators of Cu and Cd were Elsholtzia splendens and Sedum plumbizincicola, respectively. Overall, Pennisetum sp. was the best species for Cu and Cd removal when biomass was considered. The four plant treatments could improve the content of >0.25 mm mechanically stable (DR0.25) and water-stable (WR0.25) aggregates and significantly improve the aggregate mean mass diameter (MWD) and the geometric mean diameter (GMD). The largest increase was with the treatment of Pennisetum sinese, while the fractal dimension (FD) of mechanically stable aggregates could be significantly reduced by the treatment of Pennisetum sp. Hydroxyapatite and phytoremediation could improve the soil enzyme activity, and Elsholtzia splendens had the best effect in this respect. This study will provide a better understanding of the remediation of heavy metal contaminated soil.

This study identifies the main factors that affect the economic and organizational viability of a representative power generation project that applies an anaerobic digestion technology and uses cattle manure from feedlots as feedstock, in Argentina. Considering users’ needs and their organizational process, as well as the potential impact of this technology upon their performance, the results show that the viability of bioenergy systems heavily depends on the infrastructure installed along the whole supply chain and on the organizational changes applied in the collection and transportation stages of manure. They also highlight three important aspects to assess the economic viability of such projects: feedlots’ production, scale and efficiency; organizational routines; and the impact of the project itself on the overall performance of the production unit. These are crucial factors when assessing the use of manure for generating energy, and they question the idea of anaerobic digestion as a cost-effective technology for manure management and energy generation, in farms of different sizes and which produce different type of livestock in Argentina. Fil: Castelao Caruana, Maria Eugenia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Saavedra 15. Centro de Estudios Urbanos y Regionales; Argentina

Hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD) is one of the priority persistent organic pollutants (POPs), yet a cost-effective technology has been lacking for the removal and degradation of HBCD. Zero-valent aluminum (ZVAl) is an excellent electron donor. However, the inert and hydrophilic surface oxide layer impedes the release of the electrons from the core metallic Al, resulting in poor reactivity towards HBCD. In this research, a new type of modified mZVAl particles (AC@mZVAlbm/NaCl) were prepared through ball milling mZVAl in the presence of activated carbon (AC) and NaCl, and tested for adsorption and reductive degradation of HBCD in water. AC@mZVAlbm/NaCl was characterized with a metallic Al core with newly created reactive surface coated with a thin layer of crushed carbon nanoparticles. AC@mZVAlbm/NaCl was able to rapidly (within 1 h) adsorb HBCD (C0 = 2 mg L−1) and thus effectively enriched HBCD on the carbon surface of AC@mZVAlbm/NaCl. The pre-enriched HBCD was subsequently degraded by the electrons from the core Al, and ∼63.44% of the pre-sorbed HBCD was completely debrominated after 62 h of the contact. A notable time lag (∼12 h) from the onset of the adsorption to the debromination was observed, signifying the importance of the solid-phase mass transfer from the initially adsorbed AC particles to the reactive Al-AC interface. Overall, AC@mZVAlbm/NaCl synergizes the adsorptive properties of AC and the high reactivity of metallic Al, and enables a novel two-step adsorption and reductive degradation process for treating HBCD or likely other POPs.