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With the global energy crisis and environmental pollution intensifying, tissue papermaking enterprises urgently need to save energy. The energy consumption model is essential for the energy saving of tissue paper machines. The energy consumption of tissue paper machine is very complicated, and the workload and difficulty of using the mechanism model to establish the energy consumption model of tissue paper machine are very large. Therefore, this article aims to build an empirical energy consumption model for tissue paper machines. The energy consumption of this model includes electricity consumption and steam consumption. Since the process parameters have a great influence on the energy consumption of the tissue paper machines, this study uses three methods: linear regression, artificial neural network and extreme gradient boosting tree to establish the relationship between process parameters and power consumption, and process parameters and steam consumption. Then, the best power consumption model and the best steam consumption model are selected from the models established by linear regression, artificial neural network and the extreme gradient boosting tree. Further, they are combined into the energy consumption model of the tissue paper machine. Finally, the models established by the three methods are evaluated. The experimental results show that using the empirical model for tissue paper machine energy consumption modeling is feasible. The result also indicates that the power consumption model and steam consumption model established by the extreme gradient boosting tree are better than the models established by linear regression and artificial neural network. The experimental results show that the power consumption model and steam consumption model established by the extreme gradient boosting tree are better than the models established by linear regression and artificial neural network. The mean absolute percentage error of the electricity consumption model and the steam consumption model built by the extreme gradient boosting tree is approximately 2.72 and 1.87, respectively. The root mean square errors of these two models are about 4.74 and 0.03, respectively. The result also indicates that using the empirical model for tissue paper machine energy consumption modeling is feasible, and the extreme gradient boosting tree is an efficient method for modeling energy consumption of tissue paper machines.

Paper as a consumer product offers a undisputed benefits to human society, and it has been proven to be critical in driving most sensitive needs of mankind—principally in areas of security, education, sanitation, and communication—and thus has been produced and consumed worldwide. Its sustainable production and usage is one topic that has featured prominently in many discussion fronts and more often than not ends with recommendations for an alternative source of raw material, improvement in production procedures, and ecological concerns. Paper use is an ecological concern that has triggered many paper intervention actions around the world such as the Paper Task Force in USA, Sustainable Paper Alliance in China, and Paper and Beyond in Europe. In Nigeria, however, challenges associated with paper production, consumption, and economic prospects have not been adequately tackled. This is conspicuously evident in the huge volume of paper products imported annually into the country as a result of unsustainable local production. The cumulative impact of these issues reflect negatively on the Nigeria’s paper industry and spread indirectly to the entire country’s economy in terms of high capital freight spent on importation, volatile product price, and loss of employment opportunities. This work sought to review the challenges and opportunities associated with raw material sources, energy and water consumption, environmental pollution, paper consumption, and disposal of used paper products in Nigeria. The current review also advocated for wastepaper as a variant of raw material with a sustainable potential.

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.

In the context of global climate change, energy conservation and greenhouse effect gases (GHG) reduction are major challenges to mankind. The forestry-pulp and paper industry is a typical high energy consumption and high emission industry. We conducted in-depth research on the energy flows and carbon footprint of the forestry-pulp paper industry. The results show that: (1) The main sources of energy supply include external fossil fuel coal and internal biomass fuel black liquor, which supply 30,057,300 GJ and 14,854,000 GJ respectively, in addition, the energy produced by diesel in material transportation reaches 11,624,256 GJ. (2) The main energy consumption processes include auxiliary engineering projects, material transportation, papermaking, alkali recovery, pulping and other production workshops. The percentages of energy consumption account for 26%, 18%, 15%, 10% and 6%, respectively. (3) The main sources of carbon include coal and forest biomass, reaching 770,000 tons and 1.39 million tons, respectively. (4) Carbon emissions mainly occur in fuel combustion in combined heating and power (CHP) and diesel combustion in material transportation, reaching 6.78 million tons and 790,000 tons of carbon, respectively. (5) Based on steam and electricity consumption, the indirect carbon emissions of various thermal and electric energy production units were calculated, and the key energy consumption process units and hotspot carbon flow paths were further found. This research established a theoretical and methodological basis for energy conservation and emission reduction.

Development of paper industry has been restricted by resources, energy and environment deeply, further reducing energy consumption becomes an urgent problem to be solved. In this paper, the calculating model of steam consumption in bleaching process is established under the premise of ensuring product quality and controlling bleaching cost. Then, an optimization model for minimizing steam consumption is constructed. Compared with before optimization, the steam consumption of the optimized bleaching system reduced by 19.48% (0.5014 t/adt) at a loss of 0.11% brightness (0.1 ISO%) and 5.17% viscosity (33 mL/g). The amount of chemicals should be increased to ensure the quality of the pulp while decreasing the bleaching temperature to reduce steam consumption, the cost of bleaching pulp has decreased by 1.62% (3.19 USD/adt) after optimization. The verification experiments showed all the pulp quality indices can meet the requirements of bleached pulp.

Metakaolin is reactive and is widely used in the modern concrete industry. This study presents an integrated strength–sustainability evaluation framework, which we employed in the context of metakaolin content in concrete. First, a composite hydration model was employed to calculate reactivity of metakaolin and cement. Furthermore, a hydration-based linear equation was designed to evaluate the compressive strength development of metakaolin composite concrete. The coefficients of the strength evaluation model are constants for different mixtures and ages. Second, the sustainability factors—CO2 emissions, resource consumption, and energy consumption—were determined based on concrete mixtures. Moreover, the sustainability factors normalized for unit strength were obtained based on the ratios of total CO2 emissions, energy consumption, and resource consumption to concrete strength. The results of our analysis showed the following: (1) As the metakaolin content increased, the normalized CO2 emissions and resource consumption decreased, and the normalized energy first decreased and then slightly increased. (2) As the concrete aged from 28 days to three months, the normalized CO2 emissions, resource consumption, and energy consumption decreased. (3) As the water/binder ratio decreased, the normalized CO2 emissions, resource consumption, and energy consumption decreased. Summarily, the proposed integrated strength–sustainability evaluation framework is useful for finding greener metakaolin composite concrete.

Microalgae biofuel is expected to be an ideal alternative to fossil fuels to mitigate the effects of climate change and the energy crisis. However, the production process of microalgae biofuel is sometimes considered to be energy intensive and uneconomical, which limits its large-scale production. Several cultivation systems are used to acquire feedstock for microalgal biofuels production. The energy consumption of different cultivation systems is different, and the concentration of culture medium (microalgae cells contained in the unit volume of medium) and other properties of microalgae vary with the culture methods, which affects the energy consumption of subsequent processes. This review compared the energy consumption of different cultivation systems, including the open pond system, four types of closed photobioreactor (PBR) systems, and the hybrid cultivation system, and the energy consumption of the subsequent harvesting process. The biomass concentration and areal biomass production of every cultivation system were also analyzed. The results show that the flat-panel PBRs and the column PBRs are both preferred for large-scale biofuel production for high biomass productivity.

The comminution of ores consumes a high portion of energy. Therefore, different pretreatment methods of ores prior to their comminution are considered to reduce this energy. However, the results of pretreatment methods and their technological development are scattered in literature. Hence, this paper aims at collating the different ore pretreatment methods with their applications and results from published articles, conference proceedings, and verified reports. It was found that pretreatment methods include thermal (via oven, microwave, or radiofrequency), chemical additive, electric, magnetic, ultrasonic, and bio-milling. Results showed that the chemical pretreatment method has been used at an industrial scale since 1930, mainly in cement production. The microwave pretreatment results showed positive improvements at pilot scale mining applications in 2017. The results of ore pretreatment using electric and ultrasonic methods showed up to 24% and 66% improvement in energy consumption, respectively. The former and the latter have been piloted for gold and carbonate ore, respectively. Findings also showed that magnetic, radiofrequency, and bio-milling methods have not led to significant reductions in comminution energy. Based on energy reduction, safety, costs, stage of application, and downstream benefits, microwave and electrical pretreatment methods may be focused for applications in the mining industry.

This paper proposes a simple and easy-to-use methodology for forecasting the impact of changes in influent chemical oxygen demand (COD) and in the emission limit values (ELVs) of COD and total nitrogen on average energy requirements for aeration and sludge production by activated sludge wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). The methodology is based on mass balances of sludge production and oxygen requirements for carbonaceous material biodegradation and/or nitrification, oxygen transfer and aeration equipment efficiency. Using average values of historical data of regular monitoring (water quality and operating conditions) WWTP-specific equations of oxygen requirements, energy consumption and sludge production are derived as a function of influent COD and influent N-total, which may be used to quantify the impact of influent and ELV changes. The methodology was tested in five extended aeration WWTPs for three scenarios established by the utility. The results show that increasing influent COD, from 900 to 1300 mg/L, for example, significantly increases the energy consumption by 49% and sludge production by 53%. For influent 54–68 mg/L N-total, imposing 15 mgN/L ELV results in a 9–26% increase in energy consumption. The COD ELV change studied (season-specific, from 150 mg/L 12 months/year to 125 mg/L 8 months/year to 100 mg/L 4 months/year) increases the energy consumption by 1.8–2.6% and the sludge production by 4.3–5.4%.

In this work, we assess three different methods for the extraction of pectin from waste orange peels, using water as extracting solvent. “Hot-water”, Rapid Solid Liquid Dynamic (RSLD) and microwave-assisted extractions have been compared and evaluated in terms of amount and quality of extracted pectin, as well as embodied energy. This analysis provides useful guidelines for pectin production from food waste according to green procedures, enabling the identification of acidic “hot-water” as the most sustainable extraction route.

Freeze-drying is one of the most expensive and most energy intensive processes applied in food technology. Therefore, there have been significant efforts to reduce the freeze-drying time and decrease its energy consumption. The aim of this work was to analyze the effect of pulsed electric field (PEF), ultrasound (US), and hybrid treatment (PEF-US) and compare them with the effect of blanching (BL) on the freeze-drying kinetics, energy consumption, greenhouse gasses emission, and physical quality of the product. The freeze-drying process was applied to red bell peppers after pretreatment operations. Results showed that application of BL, PEF, US, or PEF-US reduces freeze-drying time and decreases energy consumption. Among the tested methods, the combination of PEF performed at 1 kJ/kg and US was the most effective in reduction of greenhouse gas emission. BL samples exhibited the highest porosity, but from a statistical point of view, most of the PEF-US treated materials did not differ from it. The smallest color changes were noted for US pre-treated bell peppers (ΔE = 9.4), whereas BL, PEF, and PEF-US material was characterized by ΔE of 15.2–28.5. Performed research indicates the application of pre-treatment may improve the sustainability of freeze-drying process and quality of freeze-dried bell pepper.

Recently, many wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) have had to deal with serious problems related to the restrictive requirements regarding the effluent quality, as well as significant energy consumption associated with it. In this situation, mainstream deammonification and/or shortened nitrification-denitrification via nitrite (so-called “nitrite shunt”) is a new promising strategy. This study shows the mechanisms and operating conditions (e.g., dissolved oxygen (DO) concentration, temp.), leading to the complete domination of ammonium oxidizing bacteria (AOB) over nitrite oxidizing bacteria (NOB) under aerobic conditions. Its successful application as shortcut nitrification in the sequencing batch reactor (SBR) technology will represent a paradigm shift for the wastewater industry, offering the opportunity for efficient wastewater treatment, energy-neutral or even energy-positive facilities, and substantial reductions in treatment costs. In this study, under low and moderate temperatures (10–16 °C), averaged DO concentrations (0.7 mg O2/L) were preferable to ensure beneficial AOB activity over NOB, by maintaining reasonable energy consumption. Elevated temperatures (~30 °C), as well as increased DO concentration, were recognized as beneficial for the NOB activity stimulation, thus under such conditions, the DO limitation seems to be a more prospective approach.

The focus of this study is to analyze the energy flows related to cardoon oil processing based on the estimated electricity consumption. It was carried out in a prototype oilseed extraction plant located in Umbria Region, Italy. This installation consists of the following processes: seed weight-storage, transportation, sifting, milling, filtering, and oil storage. Approximately 49,000 kg dry basis (DB) of cardoon seeds (Cynara cardunculus) were processed. Cardoon seeds were chosen as a feedstock due to their sustainability characteristics. Before processing, samples of raw material were analyzed in terms of moisture, oil content, impurity, density, and lower heating value. The input–output flows were measured in terms of weight and energy consumption. Its data were used to perform the mass-energy balance and estimate the efficiency of processes. About 8505 kg of filtered oil was obtained from raw material. The efficiency of the process chain was 84.42% concerning the oil content in the seeds. For the same period, the plant required a total of 17,556 MJ of electric energy from the grid for its operation. 321,507 MJ were obtained from oil and 688,875 MJ from oilcake. About 5.48% of the energy produced by oil extraction was virtually used in the process.

The improvement of energy efficiency ensuring high nutrients removal is a great concern for many wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). The energy balance of a WWTP can be improved through the application of highly efficient digestion or its intensification, e.g., through the introduction of the co-substrates with relatively high energy potential to the sewage sludge (SS). In the present study, the overview of the energetic aspect of the Polish WWTPs was presented. The evaluation of energy consumption at individual stages of wastewater treatment along with the possibilities of its increasing was performed. Additionally, the influence of co-digestion process implementation on the energy efficiency of a selected WWTP in Poland was investigated. The evaluation was carried out for a WWTP located in Iława. Both energetic and treatment efficiency were analyzed. The energy balance evaluation of this WWTP was also performed. The obtained results indicated that the WWTP in Iława produced on average 2.54 GWh per year (7.63 GWh of electricity in total) as a result of the co-digestion of sewage sludge with poultry processing waste. A single cubic meter of co-substrates fed to the digesters yielded an average of 25.6 ± 4.3 Nm3 of biogas (between 18.3 and 32.2 Nm3/m3). This enabled covering the energy demand of the plant to a very high degree, ranging from 93.0% to 99.8% (98.2% on average). Importantly, in the presence of the co-substrate, the removal efficiency of organic compounds was enhanced from 64% (mono-digestion) to 69–70%.

In this study, an experiment is conducted to explore the potential to protect both the environment and resource shortage of soybean straw, for combustion in a tubular furnace. Then, the combustion characteristics, gas emissions, and energy consumption of soybean straw are analyzed at a combustion temperature range of 773–1173 K. The results show that the total emissions of CO and NOX are the largest at a temperature of 873 K. For NOX, the emission time is significantly improved at temperatures of 973–1173 K. At high temperatures, the reaction of NOX with CO and coke reduces the total emission of NOX. The average weight loss rate at combustion temperatures of 973, 1073, and 1173 K increased by 27.38%, 61.47% and 77.97%, respectively, relative to that of 873 K. However, the energy consumption increases with the increase in combustion temperature, resulting in unnecessary waste. To get an optimal characteristic between energy utilization and pollutant discharge, a temperature range of 873–973 K is determined as the appropriate temperature for burning soybean straw.

To reduce the cost of dried litchi fruit, the processing characteristics and physicochemical properties of litchi were investigated using drying by intermittent ohmic heating (IOH) (intermittent air drying (IAD)) generated by BaTiO3 resistance. Litchi fruit pulp were dried at 70 &deg, C with an air velocity of 1.8 m/s, the drying intermittent profiles were as follows: (1) 20 min drying-on and 5 min drying-off, (2) 20 min drying-on and 10 min drying-off, and (3) 20 min drying-on and 15 min drying-off, which correspond to pulse ratios (PRs) of 1.2, 1.5, and 1.8, respectively. After drying, the water content, energy consumption, vitamin C content, total phenolic content, colour, taste, and odour qualities were assessed. The results suggested that IOH drying requires lower energy consumption and yields higher quality products. The energy consumption of intermittent air drying ranged from 341 kJ∙g&minus, 1 to 427 kJ∙g&minus, 1. The IAD of 1.2 and 1.5 PR reduced the browning of litchi fruits and gained better product quality. The major components of odour and tastes were explored in dried litchi. The rising PR of IAD enabled a lower retention of methane and sulphur-organic aroma and a higher assessing value of bitterness taste. This study revealed that BaTiO3 is suitable for IOH drying and it resulted in more merits of dried litchi fruit.

Membrane technology is one of reliable options for treatment of oil/water emulsion. It is highly attractive because of its effectiveness in separating fine oil droplets of &lt, 2 µm sizes, which is highly challenging for other processes. However, the progress for its widespread implementations is still highly restricted by membrane fouling. Most of the earlier studies have demonstrated the promise of achieving more sustained filtration via membrane material developments. This study addresses issues beyond membrane development by assessing the impact of membrane material (blend of polysulfone, PSF and polyethylene glycol, PEG), operational pressure, and crude oil concentration on the filtration performance of oil/water emulsion. The filtration data were then used to project the pumping energy for a full-scale system. Results show that fouling resistant membrane offered high oil/water emulsion permeability, which translated into a low energy consumption. The oil/water emulsion permeability was improved by three-fold from 45 ± 0 to 139 ± 1 L/(m2 h bar) for PSF/PEG-0 membrane in comparison to the most optimum one of PSF/PEG-60. It corresponded to an energy saving of up to ~66%. The pumping energy could further be reduced from 27.0 to 7.6 Wh/m3 by operation under ultra-low pressure from 0.2 to 0.05 bar. Sustainable permeability could be achieved when treating 1000 ppm oil/water emulsion, but severe membrane fouling was observed when treating emulsion containing crude oils of &gt, 3000 ppm to a point of no flux.

The blending of woody and herbaceous biomass can influence pellet quality and the energy consumption of the process. This work aims to understand the pelleting characteristics of 2-inch top-pine residue blended with switchgrass at high moisture content. The process variables tested are blend moisture content, length-to-diameter (L/D) ratio in the pellet die, and the blend ratio. A flat die pellet mill was also used in this study. The pine and switchgrass blend ratios that were tested include: (1) 25% 2-inch top pine residue with 75% switchgrass; (2) 50% 2-inch top pine residue with 50% switchgrass; and (3) 75% 2-inch top pine residue with 25% switchgrass. The pelleting process conditions tested included the L/D ratio in the pellet die (i.e., 1.5 to 2.6) and the blend moisture content (20 to 30%, w.b.). Analysis of experimental data indicated that blending 25% switchgrass with 75% 2-inch top pine residue and 50% switchgrass with 50% 2-inch top pine residue resulted in pellets with a bulk density of > 550 kg/m3 and durability of > 95%. Optimization of the response surface models developed for process conditions in terms of product properties indicated that a higher L/D ratio of 2.6 and a lower blend-moisture content of 20% (w.b.) maximized bulk density and durability. Higher pine in the blends improved the pellet durability and reduced energy consumption.

The stimulation of renewable fuel production is related to the environmental issues resulting from the extraction and utilization of fossil fuels. Although corn-based ethanol is one of the leading renewable fuels and promises to mitigate these environmental impacts, it generates large volumes of wastewater with high concentrations of organic material (CODcr &gt, 30,000 mg/L) and low pH (3.5&ndash, 4.5), which leads to serious environmental concerns. A common method of treatment of distillery wastewater is the Dry Distilled Grain Soluble (DDGS) process, which separates liquid and solid fractions, however, a disadvantage of this process is its high energy consumption. Other commonly implemented methods are often costly and not environmentally safe. To minimize these problems, a flocculation process can be applied as a potential lower energy consumption process utilizing bioflocculants, which have been proven harmless to the environment. Therefore, the main goal of this study was to analyze the economic and environmental impacts of using bioflocculants instead of evaporation process in a corn-based ethanol plant. The procedures were evaluated by analyzing the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Techno-Economic Analysis (TEA). From the results, it can be seen that the flocculation system can be an alternative process for effectively minimizing energy consumption during the production of DDGS, Distilled Wet Grains with Solubles (DWGS), and corn oil. The flocculation process achieved a significantly (28%) lower utility cost when compared to the conventional system. However, the overall fixed costs and annual operating costs for the flocculation system were higher than those of the conventional system. Additionally, both processes resulted in negative profit and a sensitivity analysis showed that the feedstocks cost substantially impacted the DDGS, DWGS, and corn oil production costs. Related to environmental aspects, the LCA results showed that the flocculation process achieved the lowest Global Warming Potential (GWP) of the several electricity supply technologies analyzed and presented a significant reduction in CO2 equivalent emissions when compared to a conventional system. The flocculation process resulted in approximately 57% lower greenhouse gas emissions.

Sugarcane juice is a perishable food with a good nutritional profile. Thus, there is a need to increase its shelf life by reducing water content which facilitates storage and transportation. In this study, process conditions were optimized to concentrate the sugarcane juice at various microwave powers (30, 50, 80, 100 W). A central composite design was applied to optimize the process conditions (power and time). The overall evaporation time depends on microwave powers, increase in power reduced the processing time. The results showed that at 100 W sugarcane juice was concentrated to 75&deg, brix for 15 min which reduced the energy consumption to 1.3 times compared to other powers. Moreover, microwave processing better retained the sensory properties of concentrate and preserved its antioxidant activity. Thus, 100 W was most energy efficient in concentrating sugarcane juice. In general, microwave processing reduced the processing time and cost making it a sustainable approach to concentrate juices.

Due to the wide potential applications of wireless sensor networks, this topic has attracted great attention. The strict energy constraints of sensor nodes result in great challenges for energy efficiency. This paper proposes an energy-efficient organization method. The organization of wireless sensor networks is formulated for target tracking. Target localization is achieved by collaborative sensing with multi-sensor fusion. The historical localization results are utilized for adaptive target trajectory forecasting. Combining autoregressive moving average (ARMA) model and radial basis function networks (RBFNs), robust target position forecasting is performed. Moreover, an energy-efficient organization method is presented to enhance the energy efficiency of wireless sensor networks. The sensor nodes implement sensing tasks are awakened in a distributed manner. When the sensor nodes transfer their observations to achieve data fusion, the routing scheme is obtained by ant colony optimization. Thus, both the operation and communication energy consumption can be minimized. Experimental results verify that the combination of ARMA model and RBFN can estimate the target position efficiently and energy saving is achieved by the proposed organization method in wireless sensor networks.

Maceration-fermentation is a critical stage in the elaboration of high-quality red wine. During this stage, the solid parts of the grape berries remain in contact with the fermenting must in order to extract polyphenols mainly located in the grape skin cells. Extracted polyphenols have a considerable impact on sensory properties (color, flavor, astringency, and bitterness) and on the aging behavior of red wine. In order to obtain wines with a sufficient proportion of those compounds, long maceration times are required. The presence of the solid parts of the grapes during red wine fermentation involves several problems for the wineries such as production capacity reduction, higher energy consumption for controlling the fermentation temperature and labor and energy consumption for periodically pump the grape must over the skin mass. Physical techniques based on heating such as thermovinification and flash expansion are currently being applied in wineries to improve the extraction of polyphenols and to reduce maceration time. However, these techniques present a series of problems derived from the heating of the grapes that affect wine quality. A series of recent studies have demonstrated that non-thermal innovative technologies such as pulsed electric fields (PEF) and ultrasound may represent effective alternatives to heating for assisting polyphenol extraction. In terms of general product quality and energetic requirements, this review compares these thermal and non-thermal physical technologies that aim to reduce maceration time.

The effects of three kinds of oxygenated fuel blends—i.e., ethanol-gasoline, n-butanol-gasoline, and 2,5-dimethylfuran (DMF)-gasoline-on fuel consumption, emissions, and acceleration performance were investigated in a passenger car with a chassis dynamometer. The engine mounted in the vehicle was a four-cylinder, four-stroke, turbocharging gasoline direct injection (GDI) engine with a displacement of 1.395 L. The test fuels include ethanol-gasoline, n-butanol-gasoline, and DMF-gasoline with four blending ratios of 20%, 50%, 75%, and 100%, and pure gasoline was also tested for comparison. The original contribution of this article is to systemically study the steady-state, transient-state, cold-start, and acceleration performance of the tested fuels under a wide range of blending ratios, especially at high blending ratios. It provides new insight and knowledge of the emission alleviation technique in terms of tailoring the biofuels in GDI turbocharged engines. The results of our works showed that operation with ethanol–gasoline, n-butanol–gasoline, and DMF–gasoline at high blending ratios could be realized in the GDI vehicle without any modification to its engine and the control system at the steady state. At steady-state operation, as compared with pure gasoline, the results indicated that blending n-butanol could reduce CO2, CO, total hydrocarbon (THC), and NOX emissions, which were also decreased by employing a higher blending ratio of n-butanol. However, a high fraction of n-butanol increased the volumetric fuel consumption, and so did the DMF–gasoline and ethanol–gasoline blends. A large fraction of DMF reduced THC emissions, but increased CO2 and NOX emissions. Blending n-butanol can improve the equivalent fuel consumption. Moreover, the particle number (PN) emissions were significantly decreased when using the high blending ratios of the three kinds of oxygenated fuels. According to the results of the New European Drive Cycle (NEDC) cycle, blending 20% of n-butanol with gasoline decreased CO2 emissions by 5.7% compared with pure gasoline and simultaneously reduced CO, THC, NOX emissions, while blending ethanol only reduced NOX emissions. PN and particulate matter (PM) emissions decreased significantly in all stages of the NEDC cycle with the oxygenated fuel blends; the highest reduction ratio in PN was 72.87% upon blending 20% ethanol at the NEDC cycle. The high proportion of n-butanol and DMF improved the acceleration performance of the vehicle.

The devulcanization of the rubber wastes in autoclave represent a technological variant that allows the superior utilization of rubber wastes, but with high energy consumption. The researches aimed at improving the devulcanization technology in order to obtain reclaimed rubber with superior characteristics, but also with a reduction in energy consumption. An improvement to devulcanization technology consisted in vacuuming the autoclave at the end of the devulcanization process. An increase in the degree of devulcanization of the rubber from 86.83% to 93.81% and an improvement of the physico-mechanical characteristics of the reclaimed rubber was achieved by applying this technology. The realization of the new type of regenerated rubber allowed for an increase in the degree of it use for different mixtures, from 15&ndash, 20 phr to 30&ndash, 40 phr without substantially affecting the physical and mechanical properties of the products. Additionally, the researche has shown that, by obtaining the new type of reclaimed rubber, the duration of the refining process has been reduced by 30%. All of this leads to a considerable reduction in energy consumption and transformation of the rubber waste reclaiming process into a sustainable one.

Xue Wang *, Jun-Jie Ma , Sheng Wang and Dao-Wei Bi State Key Laboratory of Precision Measurement Technology and Instrument, Department of Precision Instruments, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, P. R. China; E-mails: {mjj, wang_sheng00, bdw02} @mails.tsinghua.edu.cn. * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-mail: wangxue@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn. Received: 25 April 2007 / Accepted: 8 May 2007 / Published: 10 May 2007 Abstract: The limited energy supply of wireless sensor networks poses a great challenge for the deployment of wireless sensor nodes. In this paper, we focus on energy-efficient coverage with distributed particle swarm optimization and simulated annealing. First, the energy-efficient coverage problem is formulated with sensing coverage and energy consumption models. We consider the network composed of stationary and mobile nodes. Second, coverage and energy metrics are presented to evaluate the coverage rate and energy consumption of a wireless sensor network, where a grid exclusion algorithm extracts the coverage state and Dijkstra’s algorithm calculates the lowest cost path for communication. Then, a hybrid algorithm optimizes the energy consumption, in which particle swarm optimization and simulated annealing are combined to find the optimal deployment solution in a distributed manner. Simulated annealing is performed on multiple wireless sensor nodes, results of which are employed to correct the local and global best solution of particle swarm optimization. Simulations of wireless sensor node deployment verify that coverage performance can be guaranteed, energy consumption of communication is conserved after deployment optimization and the optimization performance is boosted by the distributed algorithm. Moreover, it is demonstrated that energy efficiency of wireless sensor networks is enhanced by the proposed optimization algorithm in target tracking applications. Keywords: Wireless sensor network, deployment optimization, energy efficiency, particle swarm optimization, simulated annealing.

This work presents an adaptive control of the process of alternating aeration/non-aeration cycles for wastewater treatment. It is aimed at improving nitrogen and phosphorous removal efficiency and reducing energy consumption. It comprises two control levels. The first decides when to switch on and off aeration by comparing the Dissolved Oxygen (DO) and the Oxidation Reduction Potential (ORP) with two activation thresholds. The second, a supervisory control, continuously adapt their values by analyzing the working conditions of the reactor (organic matter and ammonium loads). These working conditions are described by four parameters obtained from the DO and ORP curves: Oxygen Uptake Rate (OUR), Oxygen Rise Average Slope (ORAS), ORParrow and Nitrate and Oxygen Uptake Rate (NOUR). It also adjusts the aeration system power to adapt it to those conditions. This adaptive control has been implemented in a laboratory scale prototype and its performance compared with that provided by another control with fixed thresholds and aeration power implemented in a similar prototype. The adaptive control clearly outperforms that without adaptation in nitrogen and phosphorous removal efficiency and requires lower energy consumption. Similar efficiencies were obtained for organic matter removal (higher than 90% in both cases).

In the paper a discussion on how to optimize LonWorks/EIA-709 sensor networking technology for wireless applications, in presented. Main solutions offered by Local Operating Networks (LON, LonWorks) platform attractive for wireless communication, that is, the send-on-delta concept and the sleep mode, are displayed. The predictive p-persistent CSMA MAC protocol constituting the heart of the communication capability of LON networks is analysed in detail. Next, the message services are described, and the analytical evaluation of delivery reliability is derived. Performance evaluation based on simulation results for unicast traffic is presented first. In order to highlight the robustness of the predictive CSMA to overload situations, the saturation performance for a general case load scenario including multicast transactions is reported. The methods of effective management of energy consumption in LonWorks networks are discussed. Finally, the LON design tradeoffs are summarized.

This work is aimed at calculating the energy content of the residues from olive oil production. Olive pulp, olive husk and sludge (a mixture of olive pulp and husk) have been analyzed separately. Olive Mill Effluents (OME) are normally a problem for olive mill farms, yet they may be used as feedstock for biomass-fuelled power plants. Nonetheless, OMEs are characterized by a relatively high humidity content and are produced only during the olive season. Thus, OME need a stabilization process to be employed as a solid biofuel throughout the year. The analyses conducted attempt an evaluation of the energy consumption of a three-stage stabilization process: drying, milling and pelletising. The net electrical energy available from OME is then calculated as a difference between gross energy available and energy consumed for stabilization. The gross available electrical energy was calculated based on direct energy conversion of the stabilized feedstock on a small scale direct combustion and Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) turbine. Results show that OME are suitable for energy production. Approximately 4500 kJ/kg of net electrical energy may be obtained out of olive sludge or olive pulp, while olive husk shows a potential gross energy of 3400 kJ/kg.

Virtual Force Algorithm (VFA) is becoming a main solution to area coverage for homogeneous wireless sensor networks with random distribution of mobile sensor nodes. Consider the factors of the convergence, the boundary in Region Of Interest (ROI), effective distance of acting force and useless moving, etc, VFA is improved to overcome the above problems. Furthermore, an expression of exponential function for the relationship of virtual force is proposed to converge rapidly. Extensive simulation results indicate that these improved VFA get better performance in coverage rate, moving energy consumption, convergence etc. than original VFA.