ALBERT

Description: Diffuse nutrient pollution from agriculture has been the concern of policymakers for several decades, and yet it remains a persistent environmental issue. The current approach to mitigating the problem is predominantly via command and control regulation within the Nitrates Directive and the Water Framework Directive. This article will set out how diffuse pollution can be considered a wicked policy problem which acts as an explanation of how it has eluded the current regulatory regime. It will further establish that the traditional planning process overlooked the complexity of the problem. Finally, it will illustrate the ineffectiveness of the current regulatory framework to mitigate the problem. This will be exemplified through the legal framework of Northern Ireland.

Description: This analysis explores new developments in judicial review of planning policy interpretation. It shows how the nature of policy, often contextual and judgment-dependent, has led the UK Supreme Court to rethink the standard of review applicable to this issue. By considering the recent decision in Samuel Smith as part of a trilogy of cases—including Tesco Stores and Hopkins Homes—this analysis reveals a change in judicial attitudes, away from the expansive judicial supervision upheld in Tesco Stores. Furthermore, this study reflects on how this change is related to two wider ideas. The first is the Court’s understanding of the law and policy divide in the planning field, whilst the second is to do with a pragmatic stance regarding the purpose of the planning system and the institutional role of the courts in it. Finally, this analysis shows how the new approach emphasises the distinctive character of policy in the planning context.

Description: This article discusses the regulation of ‘substances of concern’ in the circular economy (CE) in the European Union (EU). It analyses the tensions and obstacles that the present sectoral separation of waste, product and chemicals legislation sets for the development of the CE. We argue that in a longer term perspective the aim should be to erase the border between waste and chemicals regulation and create a single regime for the regulation of materials and their flow. However, the eventual aim of such non-toxic material circulation can be achieved only via precautious transitional measures that outweigh the costs and benefits of each material flow and set restrictions for the particular substances of concern. Regulatory actions addressing the risks posed by the substances of concern in the waste-based material flows are urgently needed. New measures are necessary to protect human health and the environment and to support the development of the markets for the secondary materials.

Description: A hybrid jet-pump CO 2 compression system that may enhance system COP and reduce the environmental impact of transport refrigeration is analysed. At an evaporator temperature of –15°C, an ambient temperature of 35°C and a generator temperature of 120°C, COP increases from 1.0 to 2.27 as subcooling increases from 0 to 20 K. Compressor work is reduced by 24% at 20 K subcooling. The optimum degree of subcooling was ~10 K for the operating conditions examined. COP is improved while the size of heat exchangers required to operate the jet pump are minimised with respect to the overall weight of the system.

Description: Libya has a growing demand for electricity and presently generates almost all of its electrical energy using fossil-fuelled generation plant. An opportunity exists to use the naturally high solar radiation resource that occurs in the south of the country to meet this demand with a renewable energy source. This paper describes the design of a 50 MW photovoltaic (PV) power plant which has been modelled on the conditions pertaining to Al-Kufra. The general energy situation within Libya is described, along with the solar conditions at the proposed location of the power plant. An HIT type PV module has been selected and modelled. The effectiveness of the use of a cooling jacket on the modules has been evaluated. The results show an average increase in efficiency of 0.6%; however, this is not considered to be a justifiable expense. The optimum tilt angle and array layout have been evaluated for the proposed site. The projected energy output has been determined to be 114 GWh per annum with a payback time of 2.7 years and a reduction of CO 2 pollution by 76 thousand tonnes per year. It is recommended that very large-scale PV plants of this type are installed within Libya for the sake of benign environmental impact and diversification of the electrical generation mix.

Description: In this paper, a thorough review of the available literature on photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) systems is presented. The review is performed in a thematic way in order to allow an easier comparison, discussion and evaluation of the findings obtained by researchers, especially on parameters affecting the electrical and thermal performance of PV/T systems. The review covers a comprehensive historic overview of PV/T technology, detailed description of conventional flat-plate and concentrating PV/T systems, analysis of PV/T systems using water or air as the working fluid, analytical and numerical models, simulation and experimental studies, thermodynamic assessment of PV and PV/T systems and qualitative evaluation of thermal and electrical outputs. Furthermore, parameters affecting the performance of PV/T systems such as glazed versus unglazed PV/T collectors, optimum mass flow rate, packing factor, configuration design types and absorber plate parameters including tube spacing, tube diameter and fin thickness are extensively analyzed. Based on the thorough review, it can be easily said that the PV/T systems are very promising devices and PV/T technology is expected to become strongly competitive with the conventional power generation in the near future.

Description: In this study, an experimental research concerning the effects of passive cooling on performance parameters of silicon solar cells was presented. An aluminum heat sink was used in order to dissipate waste heat from a photovoltaic (PV) cell. Dimensions of the heat sink were determined considering the results of a steady-state heat transfer analysis. The experiments were carried out for different ambient temperatures and various illumination intensities up to 1 sun under solar simulator. Experimental results indicate that energy, exergy and power conversion efficiency of the PV cell considerably increase with the proposed cooling technique. An increase of ~20% in power output of the PV cell is achieved at 800 W/m 2 radiation condition. Maximum level of cooling is observed for the intensity level of 600 W/m 2 . Performance of PV cells both with and without fins increases with decreasing ambient temperature.

Description: High-temperature thermal storage (HTTS) in soils is a promising energy-saving technology for space heating of buildings. Based on a laboratory experimental setup using a vertical borehole heat exchanger (BHE), dynamic changes of the soil temperature and moisture content during the thermal storage process are studied. Effects of the heat injection temperature and initial moisture content on the thermal performance of the BHE are analyzed. The results show that at the first thermal storage stage, the soil temperature and moisture content near the heat source may appear a temporary peak. Its occurrence depends on the initial soil moisture content, the heat injection temperature and the distance from the heat source. As the heat injection temperature increases, the heat transfer rate of the BHE increases greatly. As the initial soil moisture content increases, the temperature profile near the BHE tends to be deviated from the results predicted by heat conduction, thereby influencing the thermal performance of the BHE. The present results can provide useful guidelines for the design of an HTTS system.

Description: The thermal performance of a horizontal-coupled ground-source heat pump system has been assessed both experimentally and numerically in a UK climate. A numerical simulation of thermal behaviour of the horizontal-coupled heat exchanger for combinations of different ambient air temperatures, wind speeds, refrigerant temperature and soil thermal properties was studied using a validated 2D transient model. The specific heat extraction by the heat exchanger increased with ambient temperature and soil thermal conductivity, however it decreased with increasing refrigerant temperature. The effect of wind speed was negligible.

Description: CO 2 solid–gas two-phase flow is investigated in an ultra-low temperature cascade refrigeration system. Visualization test shows that dry ice sedimentation occurs in low mass flow rate. The sedimentation also occurs at low condensation temperature and low heating power input. On the basis of the present investigation, it is found that the present ultra-low temperature cascade refrigeration system works better at a heating power input above 900 W and condensation temperature above –20°C. Under suitable operating conditions, the present ultra-low temperature cascade refrigeration system has shown the capability of achieving an ultra-low temperature of –62°C continuously and stably.

Description: Nowadays, many working environments are located within facilities that are not visually connected with the exterior. This is due to the new architectural paradigms as regards the design, based on the possibility to substitute natural light for artificial lighting even in daytime. Accordingly, the need of reducing energy costs and the user's wish to optimize lighting and visual comfort levels raises the option of innovative natural lighting systems implementation. For a luminous retrofitting case, located in Mendoza, Argentina, a specific methodology used determined that the more adequate natural lighting strategy would be redirecting direct sunlight, working on the reflected light design. The methodology proposed is formed by an analysis of the initial situation, conditions modelization and design resolving proposals, through luminous evaluation, real and virtual scale model construction, and performance evaluation using heliodon and simulation software. This work points to use natural lighting to reduce energy consumption and get better luminous ambient through the application of a low-cost daylighting system. In the mentioned case, strategies of redirection of the solar component capable of optimizing indoor lighting levels up to a 40% were applied.

Description: This paper aimed to numerically investigate the performance comparison between counterflow and crossflow heat exchangers for indirect evaporative air cooler. Simulation results indicate that cooling performance difference between the two configurations considerably depends on the configuration structure of heat exchangers, the inlet air status and the mass flow rates of primary and secondary. Among types of the cross-sectional shape considered in this paper, the counter configuration with rectangle channels which has a length-to-width ratio of 16:1 can provide the best cooling performance. The wet bulb effectiveness of counterflow configuration is about 7% greater than that of crossflow configuration with increasing inlet air temperature on average. The higher the inlet air temperature, the bigger the EER, cooling capacity and supply air temperature difference between the two configurations. With increasing relative humidity, the two configurations keep an average wet bulb effectiveness difference of 7.1%. The wet bulb effectiveness difference between the two configurations narrows down from 8.3 to 5.3% with increasing air velocity.

Description: Housing associations (HAs) are responsible for building and managing approximately one-third of affordable homes in Scotland. The adoption of low carbon technologies (LCTs) by HAs presents an area that could potentially help towards reducing the carbon footprint of affordable housing and the fuel poverty of tenants. This research thus explores the issues pertaining to the adoption of LCTs from the perspective of two Scottish HAs. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with selected members of the management team in both HAs. The empirical findings revealed that HA-related issues (such as organization culture, being a learning organization and training) and tenant-related issues (such as social cohesion, change in behaviour and training) can both impinge on the adoption of LCTs in HAs. It is contended that there is a piecemeal adoption of LCTs and if mass adoption is to be realized, this will require a nationwide programme that is aimed at supporting the adoption of LCT, in addition to building the skills capacity of the construction industry which is seemingly ill-prepared.

Description: Focusing on the ‘worst-case scenario', a modelling study was carried out to examine whether a low cost ventilation solution could provide basic comfort in a specific atrium-building design. This study combined dynamic thermal modelling (DTM) and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) in investigating how thermal conditions, namely the air movement and temperature distribution within an atrium responded to the side-lit form and other changes of design variables such as inlet to outlet opening area ratios and also the outlet's arrangement. The predicted temperature distribution, airflow patterns and comfort indices would provide a better understanding how the design variables affect thermal condition and comfort within the atrium, particularly at the occupied areas under a low cost ventilation solution—pressurized ventilation. The simulation results revealed that sufficiently higher inlet to outlet opening area ratio (i.e. n 〉 1) could improve the thermal condition on the open corridors, the occupied areas, even on high levels; while with an equal inlet to outlet opening area ratio (i.e. n = 1), changing the outlet's arrangement (i.e. location and configuration) did not significantly affect thermal condition. The practical aspect of this study is 2-fold. First, the low cost ventilation solution using exhaust air from surrounding fully air-conditioned rooms could provide acceptable thermal comfort at the open corridors/walkways surrounding the atrium. Secondly, combining a DTM and CFD can be an effective tool to test various design options to achieve an optimal solution. The parametric presented here could be used in similar studies aiming at optimize environmental engineering solutions that balance comfort and cost.

Description: Most existing nuclear power plants in North America are typically water-cooled and operate at 250–500°C. For this temperature level, the copper–chlorine (Cu–Cl) cycle is one of the most promising cycles that can be integrated with nuclear reactors for hydrogen production by decomposing water into its constituents. In this study, we analyze the heat exchangers in the Cu–Cl thermochemical cycle so as to enhance heat transfer effectiveness and thereby improve the cycle efficiency. The thermal management options for internal and external heat transfer are studied and heat recovery opportunities are investigated and compared. Each heat exchanger in the cycle is examined individually based on the chemical/physical behavior of the process, and the most appropriate options are recommended. A thermodynamic analysis and associated parametric studies are performed for various configurations to contrast their efficiencies and effectivenesses.

Description: The flaring of oil-associated gas continues to generate insidious environmental and energy consequences against efforts toward sustainable development for Nigeria. This study compared some of the economic benefits lost due to flared gas at flow stations with fuelwood energy consumption. The objectives were to assess comparative cost suffered by host communities, estimate greenhouse gases emissions of burnt-off gas and evaluate possible effects of post-global financial meltdown support policies on climate change. Parameters for evaluating the environmental and energy impacts were measured directly or collected from flow stations through opinion surveys and meetings. An inventory of the motors, voltages and power ratings of the machines used at the flow stations was made, with a view to quantifying the energy involved in drilling operations. For estimation of health risks and gaseous emissions, SIMPACTS method was used. Results from the study show that an annual average of 2040 MJ of fuelwood is consumed in Nigeria, 77.3% of the sourcing is done by children and the time spent in fuelwood trips is between 4 and 5 h, at a frequency of three to four times a week. This amount of fuelwood consumed examined alongside 2.5billion standard cubic feet of gas flared per day, revealed the quantity of energy that ought to be saved and related avoidable extreme weather conditions that prevail in Nigeria. Therefore, gas flaring violates the tenets of sustainable development and seriously contributes to global warming. In conclusion, flare down can be achieved by utilizing micro-gas turbines, re-injection and pursued as part of a new agenda for responsible governance in Nigeria.

Description: In order to investigate the operation performance of ground-coupled heat-pump (GCHP) system, an analytical simulation model of GCHP system on short time-step basis and a computer program based on this model to predict system operating parameters are developed in this study. Besides, detailed on-site experiments on GCHP test rig installed in a temperate region of China are carried out. The temperature distributions of borehole as well as ground around borehole at different depths are evaluated. Operation parameters of GCHP system such as circulating water temperature, heat rejection into ground and system power consumption when the system operated in intermittent and continuous modes are investigated. The accuracy of proposed simulation model is validated by experimental data. The advantage of GCHP technology in energy efficiency over other conventional air-conditioning systems is proved to be obvious and the performance of GCHP system is found to be affected by its operation modes.

Description: Sorption heat pumps based on monovariant reactions, such as ammonia-salt systems, can operate at low driving temperatures and achieve high power densities in comparison with multi-variant sorption systems. The disadvantage of monovariant systems, however, is the inflexibility towards required temperature levels. Where multivariant systems scale over a large range of temperatures, for the monovariant system, the temperature range is limited by the discrete transition from (fully) adsorbed to desorbed state. To increase flexibility towards changes in operating temperatures of the monovariant sorption systems, the extension of such systems with a compressor has been studied. Focus of this research is on the use of ammonia salts for type II heat pump for upgrading low temperature industrial waste heat to low–medium pressure steam. At ECN, a system based on LiCl–MgCl 2 ammonia reactions has proved to achieve sufficient temperature lift (〉50°C) and cyclic stability (〉100 cycles) but requires a minimum temperature of 120°C for proper operation. To add flexibility to this system, i.e. to be able to use waste heat below 120°C, the performance of a hybrid variant containing both thermally driven sorption reactors and a compressor has been evaluated. This evaluation focuses on extension in temperature range, and exergy efficiency and economic consequences of such a hybrid system. In addition, the possibility to use other ammonia-salt combinations has been investigated. The conclusions are that hybrid systems can reduce primary energy consumption and be economically feasible. It also shows that salt combinations other than LiCl–MgCl 2 could be more suitable for a hybrid thermo-chemical adsorption–compression system.

Description: The production of biofuels and other products from algae is a technology that is rapidly developing. This paper presents an overview of algae, its benefits over other biofuel sources and the technology involved in producing algal biofuel. The case study in this report looks at the potential of algal biodiesel, produced using power plant exhaust, to replace our current petrodiesel supply and consequently reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The results suggest that using 60% of all coal and gas power plants would allow this new fuel source to replace petrodiesel entirely and thus reduce greenhouse gas emissions by ~5%. The challenge at the present is to improve the efficiency of algal fuel production technology so as to lower the cost of algal biodiesel and thereby make it commercially competitive with petrodiesel. Researchers are currently developing various means of accomplishing this and successful commercialization is anticipated by 2018.

Description: Performance testing of solar heating systems and solar collectors according to International Standard Test procedures require sophisticated and expensive elaborate set-ups. Outdoor collector testing is not feasible in countries with widely fluctuating solar radiation conditions. Indoor testing does not give its true performance when the equipment is situated outdoors. This paper reports on a simple test procedure where the performances of the flat plate, U-tube and heat pipe natural convection solar heaters and the heat pipe force convection solar heater, which were tested on different days, were compared as if they were simultaneously tested side by side. The procedure allowed: (i) the maximum hot water storage temperature that could be achieved by the system over a long period of time without any water draw-off at all, (ii) overnight water temperature drop in the storage tank and (iii) expected end-of-day water temperature and mean system efficiency when water is completely drained down (draw-off) in the evening. Maximum temperatures reached for the natural convection heat pipe, force convection heat pipe, flat plate and U-tube system were 100, 84, 65 and 50°C, respectively. Overnight temperature drops due to standing tank loss and reverse flow were presented and found to be dependent upon initial tank temperature. By pro-rating all the results to reflect on the same area/volume ratio, the expected water temperature rise for the U-tube, forced convection heat pipe, flat plate and natural convection heat pipe systems was 13.6, 17.6, 20.6 and 28.4°C, respectively.

Description: New definitions of two-phase viscosity, based on its analogy with thermal conductivity of porous media, are investigated for transcritical capillary tube flow, with CO 2 as the refrigerant. Friction factor and pressure gradient quantifies are computed based on the proposed two-phase viscosity model using homogeneous modelling approach. The Proposed new models are assessed based on test results in the form of temperature profile and mass flow rate in a chosen capillary tube. It is shown that all the proposed models of two-phase viscosity models show a good agreement with the existing models such as McAdams et al ., Cicchitti et al ., etc. The influence of the viscosity model is found to be insignificant unlike to other conventional refrigerants in capillary tube flow.

Description: The ammonia–water absorption cycle could transfer thermal energy into chemical energy by the change in solution concentration, which low-grade heat released by industry-concentrated areas could be utilized to provide heating or cooling in the user site over long distance. No heat insulation is required for the transportation pipelines and the energy consumption is reduced greatly. The simulation researches show that thermal coefficient of performance (COP) is at 0.5 and exergy efficiency is 〉0.2 when generation temperature is at 110°C to provide cooling in summer; thermal COP is at 0.6 and exergy efficiency is 〉0.3 to provide heating in winter. Electrical COP as high as 50 could be realized if the transportation distance is 〉50 km. Therefore, the COP of the system is determined by thermal COP (nearly equal). An experimental prototype has been built to testify this theory. Thermal COP is 0.43 when chilled water at 8°C is obtained in summer. In winter, thermal COP is 0.45 when hot water at 58°C is obtained. The deviations between experimental and simulation results are ~20%. The economic assessment based on the reasonable assumptions shows that the investment cost of the transportation pipelines of a 500 MW, 50 km system could be recovered within 15 months, in which the whole system costs could be recovered within 4 years.

Description: In process industry, large amounts of surplus heat are available. Electricity production is an interesting method to recover this energy. This paper focuses on the off-design operation of the Rankine cycles and compares the behaviour of transcritical CO 2 cycles and an organic Rankine cycle (ORC) with R-123 as the working fluid. The simulations show that the ORC is more sensitive than the CO 2 cycle to reduction in available heat, and will with only small changes get droplets in the inlet of the expander. With small increments in the available heat source, the CO 2 cycle also seem to have a marginally better response without control of the process.

Description: The advantages of numerical modelling compared with experimental studies (e.g. reduced cost, easy control of the variables, high yield etc.) are well known. Theoretical studies where experimental validation is also presented provide an important added value to numerical investigations. In the present paper, experimental and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) results for a 5-kW-rated capacity steam ejector, with a variable primary nozzle geometry, are presented and compared. The variable geometry was achieved by applying a movable spindle at the primary nozzle inlet. Relatively low operating temperatures and pressures were considered, so that the cooling system could be operated with thermal energy supplied by solar collectors (solar air-conditioning). The CFD model was based on the axi-symmetric representation of the experimental ejector, using water as a working fluid. The experimental entrainment ratio varied in the range of 0.1–0.5, depending on operating conditions and spindle tip position. It was found that the primary flow rate can be successfully adjusted by the spindle. CFD and experimental primary flow rates agreed well, with an average relative error of 8%. CFD predicted the secondary flow rate and entrainment ratio with good accuracy only in 70% of the cases.

Description: Biodiesel, an alternative fuel of petroleum diesel, is mainly used to reduce the environmental impact of emissions without modifying engines. This study compares the performance and emissions characteristics of different biodiesel blends with petroleum diesel using an internal combustion engine (Kubota V3300) and following ISO 8178 standards. Two types of biodiesel, type A (80% tallow and 20% canola oil methyl ester) and type B (70% chicken tallow and 30% waste cooking oil methyl ester), were tested in this study. It was found that the performance (mainly torque and brake power) of both biodiesel fuels reduces with increasing blend ratio which can be attributed to lower energy content of biodiesel. Specific fuel consumption increases for both biodiesels compared with diesel fuel, as expected. Some of the greenhouse gas emissions were found to be higher than petroleum diesel, whereas some were lower. Overall, Biodiesel A was found to produce lower emissions across the board compared with diesel and Biodiesel B.

Description: In this work, a micro-tri-generation system integrated with a solar system is studied. A basic micro-cogeneration technology [micro-CHP (combined heat and power) system] integrating solar collectors, storage tank, micro-turbine and a thermodynamic cycle based on the organic Rankine cycle (ORC) is combined with an absorption chiller. The heat rejected at the condenser of the micro-CHP system is used for water heating (WH), and the absorption chiller is used for space cooling. Hot water from the solar storage tank is the heat source for the cooling system (absorption chiller) and the micro-CHP system. A heat exchanger is used to transfer heat from the hot water circuit to the power cycle (which uses an organic refrigerant). The micro-CHP system under analysis uses a micro-turbine and an electric generator with a power output of 5 kW. The turbine inlet temperature is 80°C and the working fluid is cyclohexane. The absorption chiller, which is a single-effect water-fired chiller, operates with a lithium bromide and water mixture, and water inlet temperature is between 80 and 100°C. The performance for different solar collector areas and tank capacities was evaluated through a numerical model. A hotel building was used as a case study and the analysis was extended throughout the cooling season, for climatic conditions of different European cities: Athens (Greece), Lisbon (Portugal), Madrid (Spain), Paris (France) and London (UK). The monthly average solar fraction was evaluated for different cases: the micro-CHP system, the cooling system and the micro-tri-generation system with the useful condenser energy used for WH. The solar fraction of the micro-CHP system was low, compared with that of the cooling system, because the efficiency of the micro-CHP system is lower than 7%. However, when the tri-generation system is considered, the monthly average solar fraction is much higher, due to the utilization of the condenser heat. The solar system, cooling system and its components were modelled with the TRNSYS simulation program. The micro-CHP system was modelled with EES software.

Description: Concentrating photovoltaic (PV) systems provide an effective way to reduce the cost of electricity production by reducing the amount of silicon required. The use of a Fresnel lens is one of the typical design options for the concentrating PV systems. Compared with a parabolic mirror, a Fresnel lens has its focus behind the lens surface. This gives a convenience for installation of PV cells and also there is no matter of shading caused by the PV cells. However, both Fresnel lens and parabolic dish concentrating PV systems need to be accompanied by a high accuracy sun-tracking system. This study presents the design analysis of a Fresnel lens concentrating PV cell which consists of a small linear Fresnel lens and a strip PV cell. A number of cells may form a modular large concentrating PV system using a single sun-tracking system. Based on the analysis of the ray path through the Fresnel lens and a current density distribution model for the PV cell, a computer program has been produced to predict the irradiance distribution on the PV cell and the distribution of current density. The results are used to determine the effect of sun-tracking deviation and PV cell position on the PV current distribution. The calculated and experimental short-circuit current and open-circuit voltage of the designed Fresnel lens concentrating PV cell are also given.

Description: In this paper, we investigate using a refrigeration scroll compressor as expander for power generation applications with a Rankine cycle. The methodology employed here has three steps: In the first step, a scroll compressor is selected from a refrigeration manufacturer catalog. Based on catalog data and our simplified model, the specific parameters of the compressor such as the built-in volume ratio and leakage coefficient are determined through mathematical regression. In the second step, the parameters and the efficiency of the Rankine cycle are determined, which use the selected scroll machine in reverse, namely as expander, without any geometrical modifications. The range of temperatures and pressures are kept the same as that characterizing the compressor operation. A simplified expander model is used to predict the efficiency of the prime mover and of the Rankine cycle. A range of working fluids are considered and compared. The expander does not operate optimally when converted from a compressor without any modifications. In the third phase, the geometry of the expander is modified with respect to the rolling angle only in order to obtain the appropriate built-in volume ratio which assures better efficiency of the Rankine heat engine. This paper also presents a parametric study in terms of geometry, working fluid and operating conditions.

Description: This paper presents the methodology, results and a discussion of thermal response tests (TRTs) performed on a multiple borehole ground heat exchanger. The ground heat exchanger consisted of nine 80-m deep boreholes. TRTs with durations between 48 and 260 h were performed on individual boreholes. Tests were analysed using common evaluation methods, and ground conductivity and borehole resistance values were determined for all nine boreholes. In addition to these parameters, the undisturbed ground temperatures were also determined for individual boreholes using multiple approaches. A sensitivity analysis was performed to analyse the effects of various test and parameter uncertainties on the ground thermal conductivity and borehole thermal resistance estimations.

Description: The inherent structural features of environmental problems cause environmental law to be written in a particular way and have led to the creation of novel adjudicative institutions, such as specialist environment courts and tribunals. But they also force us to view core constitutional principles, such as the rule of law and separation of powers, from different perspectives. By placing greater weight on certain components of these principles and lessening the force of others, solving environmental problems through law is rebalancing legal thought. Using New Zealand as a case study, this article explores how the legal infrastructure might respond to this contextual force by ensuring decision-making institutions operate with integrity and reflect public reasoned thoughtfulness, so fostering the rule of law within this unusual legal landscape.

Description: This analysis maps the key challenges posed by de-extinction to nature conservation law. The aim is to start a conversation about how such challenges should be framed and addressed if ongoing de-extinction projects in the United States of America (US) and the European Union (EU), the two jurisdictions examined, are successful. The analysis commences by providing a brief overview of existing debates in the conservation literature on the legal and ethical issues posed by de-extinction within the animal context. The article then proceeds to highlight two challenges animals created via de-extinction (de-extinctees) will likely pose for nature conservation law, namely: (1) to what extent taxonomies or definitions of ‘species’, and the methods for classifying these species under existing conservation frameworks, will be challenged by de-extinction; and (2) how existing conservation law frameworks in the US and the EU would likely apply to de-extinctees, and whether de-extinctees would be protected under these frameworks. It concludes by posing the broader question of whether and to what extent the law should facilitate de-extinction attempts in the same way that it has done for nature conservation.

Description: This case analysis considers the Court of Appeal’s decision in R (Plan B Earth and ors) v Secretary of State for Transport [2020] EWCA Civ 214, which followed the High Court challenge to the Secretary of State’s designation of the UK Airports National Policy Statement. The Court of Appeal found that the Secretary of State’s failure to take into account the UK’s commitment to the Paris Agreement when carrying out his duties under the Planning Act 2008 was unlawful. While permission to appeal this decision has been granted, it remains a notable judgment. The Plan B Earth case confirms the interaction between the UK’s climate change commitments and the statutory framework of the UK’s planning system. It also highlights the complexity of the Court’s institutional role in the context of environmental problems. Analysing the implications of this decision through a policymaking lens risks overlooking the role of public law principles that shaped the Court’s reasoning, defining the relationship between the Paris Agreement and the Planning Act.

Description: The environmental impact assessment (EIA) system is currently located at the centre of China's environmental legal reform. The Chinese government has undertaken significant legal strategies to rectify past regulatory wrongs, close enforcement gaps, and improve public participation. However, ongoing administrative reform and prevailing policies optimizing the business environment have made the efficacy of EIA reform more complicated and uncertain. Through examining how EIA laws and regulations on accountability, compliance, and participation have changed, this article provides an analytical framework to evaluate current legal reform of EIA. It finds that the Chinese government is attempting to bring about genuinely functional EIA reform by improving the legitimacy and efficiency of EIA in delivering better environmental decisions. Yet, its efforts could be undermined by the unsettled conflict between legitimacy and efficiency. Furthermore, functional EIA reform could be constrained by peripheral challenges such as inconsistent institutional arrangements, the undefined role of the judiciary, and an underrepresented environmental public interest.

Description: One category of voluntary approaches to environmental governance is ecolabels used to nudge consumers towards purchasing environmentally friendly products. The purpose of this article is to critically review the trade law implications of voluntary ecolabels, with special reference to the EU Ecolabel. For a long time, the lack of trade disputes related to the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT Agreement) before the World Trade Organization Dispute Settlement Body rendered research on the legality of voluntary ecolabels in trade law unavoidably speculative. Consequently, the existing scholarship has failed to inform the environment law community clearly how trade law views voluntary ecolabels. This article aims to fill the gap in the literature by evaluating the consistency of the EU Ecolabel with the TBT rules. The article concludes that it is highly unlikely that the EU Ecolabel may be found inconsistent with the TBT Agreement. Nevertheless, there remains some legal risks.

Description: In 2018, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) announced the first sector-wide emission reduction target for international shipping. The roadmap to achieve this goal is the Initial IMO Strategy on Reduction of GHG Emissions from Ships, which proposes implementation measures for the short, medium and long term. This article examines three of these measures: National Action Plans (NAPs), market-based mechanisms (MBMs) and alternative fuels. We argue that NAPs can play a key role in directing national action and facilitating implementation within national jurisdictions. In relation to MBMs, we find that a carbon tax might be more efficient than emission trading. Yet, ultimately, the sector’s decarbonisation can only be truly achieved with zero-carbon fuels. Noting the considerable barriers to the development and use of these fuels, we consider how the private sector is beginning to shift resources to this challenge, spurred by the IMO targets and new understandings of climate-related financial risks and opportunities.

Description: This article is concerned with the potential for private action to improve sourcing practices to promote biodiversity. More specifically this article examines the Union for Ethical BioTrade (UEBT) and its verification and certification of ‘sourcing with respect’: that is, sourcing ingredients from biodiversity in a way that is respectful to both the local environment and people. While key international biodiversity treaties and instruments—such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and Nagoya Protocol—encourage public actors to work with private actors to develop methods for the sustainable use of biological resources, our examination of UEBT shows that there are concerns over the standards, implementation and enforcement of private initiatives. In conclusion, we suggest two key ways in which transnational or public/private initiatives can be strengthened. First, via more proactively promoting public/private cooperation, including about how certification is used to reduce inconsistency and consumer overload or confusion. Secondly, by placing greater emphasis on mechanisms that place pressure on supply chain actors to source in ways that promote biodiversity.

Description: Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have been at the forefront of securing environmental justice for the people of Nigeria’s Niger Delta suffering the effects of pollution arising from petroleum exploitation. Standing constraints have, however, limited NGOs’ abilities to access the courts to prevent or remedy pollution. This article analyses the recent decision of Nigeria’s Supreme Court in Center for Oil Pollution Watch v Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). It finds that environmental NGOs, previously unable to institute action under existing public interest litigation procedures, can now institute action in their own rights to prevent or remedy environmental pollution in Nigeria.

Description: The significance of post-disaster temporary housing for the victims has led to the problem of designing a good model of temporary housing. According to research hypothesis, using the design of Iranian nomads’ housing instead of common forms of temporary housing contributes to energy saving. Investigating the architecture of nomads’ housing indicates that there is a type of indigenous knowledge for designing and constructing this type of housing. After the study, data collection and a review of the types of Iranian nomads’ housing using library and causal method, thermal simulation was conducted to investigate the effect of changing the temporary housing form inspired by the nomads’ housing on energy consumption. Findings showed that using shapes like Kapars of Baluchistan nomads, wigwams of Shahsavan tribe in Ardabil and mudhifs of Khuzestan will save energy for 36%, 24% and 25%, respectively.

Description: The quality and shelf-life of NCS (non-centrifugal sugar) mainly depend on the moisture content present in it. NCS formed by the current practice of open sun drying contains moisture substantially greater than the acceptable level of 3%. This paper presents the work undertaken to design a tunnel dryer to achieve the required moisture content of granular NCS for various load conditions. An experimental investigation was conducted on a laboratory-scale dryer to achieve the required moisture content for various loads. This experimental data was compared with the output of two drying models and a validated one that could be used to design an industrial-scale dryer. For various load conditions on each tray and dryer exit temperature, nine different cases were determined. The number of trucks, drying time, and energy requirements were computed using the validated theoretical model. A tunnel dryer with a length, height and width of 18, 1.2 and 1 m respectively and 18 trucks with 24 trays on each truck is shown to be dry 1 tone of NCS based on the minimum energy requirement of 176.49 MJ, and a drying time of 68 min.

Description: 4-Amino-3-(2-bromo-5-methoxyphenyl)-1H-1,2,4-triazole-5(4H)-thione (ATH) was synthesized and characterized by nuclear magnetic resonance and Fourier-transform infrared as spectroscopical techniques and elemental analysis. ATH was studied for corrosion inhibition of mild steel in corrosive environment by means of weight loss technique, scanning electron microscopy and the adsorption isotherm. ATH demonstrates a superior inhibition efficiency against corrosion of mild steel. Adsorption data fit well to a Langmuir isotherm model.

Description: Hydrogen-fueled combustion systems are becoming popular in recent years. Methane is one of the significant hydrogen supplier in nature. Thus, in the study, the natural gas-fueled reactor-assisted solid oxide fuel-cell system is configured to provide a current to load the battery to turn the propeller of an unmanned aerial vehicle in the large-scale hydrogen-onboard system. The methane-fueled reactor has not been studied under a large-scale case in literature yet. To investigate the amount of products, this paper presents about the steam-reforming performance of natural gas in steady state and transient in the reactor. The influence of vital parameters such as steam/carbon, gas feed temperatures, the amount of heat transferred to the reactor in methane steam reforming for a plug flow reactor, and a continuous stirred tank-type reactor is investigated respectively. Methane conversion, yield of hydrogen gas and H2 gas generation for different medium conditions along the reactor are studied on by using the COMSOL Multiphysics program. The steady-state and time-dependent characteristics of the steam reforming of natural gas are focused on. The high conversion ratio of methane gas is obtained by ranking the steam/carbon ratio. The released hydrogen gas molar flow rate is increasing according to the reactor volume. The achieved power provided by produced gas of H2 is 97 hp supplying the thrust force for an unmanned aerial vehicle.

Description: The corrosion inhibition of Schiff base, namely 2-((2-hydroxy-5-methoxybenzylidene)amino)pyridine (HMAP), for mild steel (MS) in a 1 M hydrochloric acid environment was investigated by means of weight loss and scanning electron microscopy techniques. Quantum chemical calculation based on density functional theory (DFT) was carried out on HMAP. Results illustrated that HMAP is a superior inhibitor for the corrosion of MS in 1.0M hydrochloric acid environment, and inhibition efficiency is higher than 90.0% at 0.5 g/L HMAP. Inhibition performance increases with regard to concentration increase and inhibition performance decreases when raising temperature. Adsorption of the inhibitor on the MS surface followed Langmuir adsorption isotherm and the value of the free energy of adsorption; ΔGads indicated that the adsorption of HMAP was a physisorption/chemisorption process. The DFT refers to perfect correlation with methodological inhibition performance.

Description: Ecological footprint (EF) is an indicator that accounts for human demand in the environment compared with the sizes of the bio-productive land and sea areas. This research was carried out to determine the EF for environmental sustainability in Ilorin Metropolis. Empirical surveying, which involved systematic random sample technique, was used to select residential households in each community for this investigation. The EF indicators, which include food, energy and waste consumptions, were determined empirically. The bio-capacity (BC), ecological stress and deficit were determined, from the land used as environmental sustainable areas in Ilorin, using Google Earth Mapping. The results revealed that energy has the highest EF of 44%, followed by waste and food with the footprint of 25% and 5%, respectively. A deficit of 38% was obtained, and this requires eight times the BC to balance the EF of the population. This implies that people are consuming more of the energy and generating more wastes than they consumed food.

Description: The case study presented in this paper is an innovative ground source heat pump (GSHP) system constituted by a hybrid Photovoltaic Thermal (PVT) solar system for poultry houses. Farmers tend to not to apply GSHPs because of the high prices of excavation and time consumption. The innovative heat pump system assessed in this study comprises of a new type of heat exchangers; a thin-tube solar polyethylene heat exchanger installed between roof tiles and PV panels and a novel vertical ground heat exchanger to utilize the heat stored in the soil. The heating system applied to a poultry house are monitored and evaluated under a variety of environmental and operating conditions to achieve annual/long-term efficiency of the heating system in Kirton, UK. The maximum heating demand of the poultry house is determined 34.4 MWh/PC while the minimum is 11,1 MWh/PC. The monitored results show that the heat pump produced 15.02 MWh of thermal energy per annum. Solar PV and heat pump worked very well together with solar PV covering all the heat pump’s annual electrical energy requirement and generated 8.74 MWh of extra electricity exported to the grid. The seasonal coefficient of performance is found 3.73 through a year. The novel PVT-GSHP heating system is a very promising solution for high fossil fuel consumption in the agriculture industry and the energy savings of the whole system can be noticeably increased dependent up on the system controlling.

Description: This paper introduces an innovative thin film PV vacuum glazing (PV-VG) technology. In addition to electricity generation, the PV-VG glazing can also reduce heat loss from the building in winter and reduce heat gain in summer. In building integrated photovoltaics application, optical characterization of the PV glazing is important in determining the solar ray transmission and thermal transfer process of the glazing. This paper discusses the optical properties of the PV-VG glazing by considering the different layers of the glazing unit that includes a self-cleaning glass, a thin film PV glass and a low-e vacuum glazing. Based on the optical transfer matrix, the transmission coefficients of different film layers were deduced. The theoretical calculations were then validated against the transmission coefficient experiment of the PV-VG using an EDTM SS2450 Solar Spectrum Meter. The calculation error of the transmission coefficient of the single-layer glazing is generally within 5%, the calculation error of the transmission coefficient of the integrated PV-VG glazing is about 6%. The results show that the average visible light transmission coefficient, the average infrared light transmission coefficient and the overall transmission coefficient of PV-VG glazing are 19%, 16% and 12%, respectively. The study is important to optimize the visible light transmission of the PV-VG glazing; the optical model obtained above lays a solid foundation for further study of transmission coefficient analysis of different functional coating of PV-VG glazing.

Description: Renewable energy technologies have been developed in recent years due to the limited sources of fossil fuels, the possibility of depletion of fossil fuels and the related environmental issues. In these types of systems, it is crucial to reach optimum sizing in order to have an affordable system based on solar and wind energy and energy storage. In this study, a powerful optimization scheme based on tabu search, called discrete tabu search, has been proposed for sizing three stand-alone solar/wind/energy storage (battery) hybrid systems. For validating the applied algorithm effectiveness, the results are compared with the results found by the discrete harmony search. The obtained outcomes are compared on the basis of total annual cost. The components of the scheme are analyzed in different operating conditions by applying meteorological data in addition to real time information from three typical regions of Iran. According to the obtained data, applying ‘discrete tabu search’ leads to better outputs on the basis of mean, standard deviation and worst indexes.

Description: Based on 804 samples of farmers in Hubei Province, a typical major grain-producing area in China, this study empirically analyzed the effects of two different policy tools, i.e. economic incentives (subsidies) and order enforcements (regulatory restrictions), as well as the effects of their interaction, on farmers’ chemical fertilizer reduction and substitution behaviors. Samples were grouped according to the degree of concurrent employment to analyze the effects on different groups. The results show that (1) the influences of these policies on the behaviors were significantly positive; (2) after constructing the interactive variables of the policies, the influence of the order enforcement policy was no longer significant, but the influence of the interaction was significantly positive; (3) the low-degree concurrent employment farmers were more likely to be affected by the order enforcement policy, whereas the high-degree ones were more affected by the economic incentive policy; and (4) the behaviors of the low-degree ones were strongly affected by family management characteristics, whereas the high-degree ones were more affected by the farmers’ individual characteristics.

Description: The present study aims to investigate the thermodynamic and financial aspect of concentrated solar power (CSP) plant hybridized with biomass-based organic Rankine cycle (ORC), thermal energy storage (TES), hot springs and CO2 capture systems. The organic working fluids namely R123, R235fa, D4 and MDM are selected for designing the hybrid system at different operating conditions. The nominal power capacities of the CSP and biomass ORC plants are 1.3 MW and 730 kW respectively. Additionally, a parametric study has been carried out to understand the influencing parameters that affect the system’s performance. From the results, it is revealed that the biomass ORC plant with a hot spring system alone can develop a power of 720 and 640 kW for D4 and MDM respectively. Furthermore, the power generation can be increased with addition of TES in the CSP plant. From the economic point of view, the hybrid system with special focus on CO2 capture could be very profitable if the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) is fixed at 0.24$/kWh. In this scenario, the payback period is 8 years with an internal rate of return (IRR) more than 8%. Therefore, the hybrid system is thermodynamically and financially attractive for dispatchable electricity.

Description: Geothermal energy is a kind of green and non-polluting renewable energy. Medium and low-temperature geothermal energy below 150 °C is usually used directly for heating, industrial and agricultural heating, bathing, etc., and the utilization rate is low. Organic Rankine cycle (ORC) system can be used in a low-temperature geothermal power generation systems. Thermodynamic analysis of the thermal cycle system is carried out in this paper. Based on the principle of exergy analysis, the cycle parameters such as evaporation temperature, condensation temperature, superheating temperature, and supercooling temperature are analyzed. The results show that the exergy efficiency and system output power can improve by increasing evaporation temperature and the exergy loss can decrease in the evaporator. Increasing superheating temperature enhances the output power of the expander and the exergy loss in the condenser, decreases the exergy efficiency simultaneously. Increasing condensation temperature decreases the exergy efficiency of the system and the output power of the expander, and increases the exergy loss of the system. Although the output power of the expander will not be affected by supercooling temperature, the rise of supercooling temperature will reduce the exergy efficiency of the system and increase the exergy loss of the evaporator.

Description: The present work aimed to select the optimum solar tracking mode for parabolic trough concentrating collectors using numerical simulation. The current work involved: (1) the calculation of daily solar radiation on the Earth’s surface, (2) the comparison of annual direct solar radiation received under different tracking modes and (3) the determination of optimum tilt angle for the north-south tilt tracking mode. It was found that the order of solar radiation received in Shanghai under the available tracking modes was: dual-axis tracking 〉 north-south Earth’s axis tracking 〉 north-south tilt tracking (β = 15°) 〉 north-south tilt tracking (β = 45) 〉 north-south horizontal tracking 〉 east-west horizontal tracking. Single-axis solar tracking modes feature simple structures and low cost. This study also found that the solar radiation received under the north-south tilt tracking mode was higher than that of the north-south Earth’s axis tracking mode in 7 out of 12 months. Therefore, the north-south tilt tracking mode was studied separately to determine the corresponding optimum tilt angles in Haikou, Lhasa, Shanghai, Beijing and Hohhot, respectively, which were shown as follows: 18.81°, 27.29°, 28.67°, 36.21° and 37.97°.

Description: Renewable energies could be a good solution to the problems associated with fossil fuels. The storage of wind energy by means of small-scale devices rather than large-scale turbines is a topic that has gained lots of interest. In this study, a compact device is proposed to harvest wind energy and transform it into electrical energy, by means of oscillations of a magnet into a coil, using the concept of vortex-induced vibration (VIV) behind a barrier. For a more comprehensive investigation, this system is studied from two viewpoints of fluid mechanics (without magnet) and power generation (with the magnet). For this purpose, an oscillating plate hinging on one side and three barriers with different geometrical shapes including cylindrical, triangular and rectangular barriers are used. In addition to the effect of barrier geometry, the impacts of various barriers dimensions, the distance between the plate and the barriers as well as inclination angle of the plate with respect to the horizon on the amplitude of oscillations and generated power are investigated. Results showed that in each case, there is a unique Reynolds number in which the frequency of vortex shedding equals to the frequency of plate oscillation and the output power from the energy harvester device is maximum. Besides, by increasing the barrier dimensions, the amplitude of oscillations increases up to three times, which leads to a higher generated power. Finally, by considering the studied parameters, the best conditions for generating energy using the VIV method are presented for design purposes. Among all the considered cases, the cylindrical barrier with the highest diameter and nearest distance to the plate led to the highest efficiency (0.21%) in comparison with other barriers.

Description: In this study, thermodynamic analysis was performed on basic and recuperative transcritical organic Rankine cycles by using five pure and six mixed fluids. The effects of evaporation parameters on the first- and second-law efficiencies (ηI and ηII) as well as power output were investigated. The results indicate that a recuperator had a positive effect on the ηI and ηII and negative effects on the specific power. The total irreversibility of the system was improved by the recuperator. However, the total irreversibility considerably increased with an increase in the expander inlet temperature (Texp,in) due to the significant increase in irreversibility in the condenser, particularly for working fluids with low critical temperatures, namely R134a, R1234yf and R290, and low proportions of R245fa and R600a in mixed fluids. For both the pure and mixed fluids, the specific power linearly increased with an increase in the expander inlet pressure (Pexp,in) and Texp,in. However, with an increase in Pexp,in, the ηI and ηII first increased and then decreased. Finally, for ηI and ηII, the effect of the recuperator increased with an increase in Texp,in even though the recuperator had a relatively small effect on the working fluids with high critical temperature, especially when Pexp,in was high.

Description: In this work, the network data envelopment analysis (DEA) model was used to divide the transformation of scientific and technological achievements in colleges and universities into two stages, which makes up for the lack of process measurement in a single DEA model. Also, the relationship between the transformation efficiency of scientific and technological achievements in universities and the development of a low-carbon economy was quantitatively analyzed. The research results show that: (1) the transformation efficiency of scientific and technological achievements of universities in China is increasing year by year and which is significantly higher in the eastern region than that in the central and western regions. (2) The efficiency of the transformation of scientific and technological achievements of the university promotes the reduction of carbon emission intensity and the development of a low-carbon economy, indicating that the improvement of the transformation efficiency of scientific and technological achievements of the university has a good role in promoting the ecological environment protection. However, compared with the developed countries, the quantity and quality of science and technology supply and ecological environment protection in China’s universities are still insufficient. In this regard, the development suggestions are put forward from the aspects of government policy guidance, professional talent cooperation and strengthening the docking between universities and industrial low-carbon economic development. The purpose of this paper is to promote the development of a low-carbon economy by improving the efficiency of scientific and technological achievements transformation in universities, to achieve the goal of ecological environment protection.

Description: In order to improve the friendliness of the grid connection of new energy power generation, the new energy photovoltaic (PV) unit is equivalent to a synchronous generator in the power system and a virtual synchronous generator (VSG)-controlled PV energy storage complementary grid-connected power generation system model is established and studied to analyze the VSG. When power is supplied to the load together with the power grid, the energy storage unit inside the VSG will release and store the electrical energy according to the fluctuation of the PV output, which plays the role of the adjustment of the prime mover; in the case of load power fluctuations, and power grid assume the corresponding active power regulation according to their capacity. The amount of active power adjustment to jointly and maintain the power balance inside the system under the condition of fluctuating load power. The overall system architecture and control strategy of PV grid-connected inverter based on VSG algorithm are proposed. The PV-VSG proposed here not only takes into account the maximum power point tracking control but also has independent participation in the power supply. A series of characteristics of synchronous generators, such as network frequency modulation voltage regulation and inertia damping, can effectively improve the new energy PV power generation system and promote the new energy consumption. The results of system simulation and field demonstration operation fully show the effectiveness and correctness of the proposed control strategy based on VSG algorithm.

Description: A roof-mounted radiant cooling system incorporating a bypass structure, intended for use on liquid natural gas (LNG)-fueled refrigerated vehicles and offering stable dynamic regulation was designed. A model was established using the TRNSYS software package to simulate the operation of this system, and the effects of various factors on the refrigeration performance were analyzed. The quantitative relationship between the LNG flow rate and the ambient temperature was determined and a dynamic regulation strategy proposed. The results of this work show that, when the vehicle is operated at an economical speed, the cooling capacity provided by the system is greater than 1.2 kW, which meets the requirements for a refrigerated vehicle. The dynamic regulation approach developed in this study was found to allow use of the refrigerated vehicle under different climactic conditions and to improve the stability of the cooling system.

Description: The increasing global energy and environmental problems are encouraging to the development and utilization of renewable and clean energy in various countries. Wind power is one of the major source in large-scale renewable energy applications. However, the frequency regulation becomes a critical issue while the technology is spreading. Research on the frequency modulation (FM) technology of wind turbines and its control strategy for future power grids become significant. The paper proposes a novel coordinated frequency control strategy with the synchronous generator to solve the unmatched state between the output power of the doubly-fed wind turbines (doubly-fed induction generators) and the grid frequency, combined with the frequency response characteristics of the synchronous generator. The FM coordination strategy is formulated by the modulation coefficient from current wind speed and operation mode of each wind turbine. By coordinating the FM output of the doubly-fed wind turbine and the synchronous generator within the allowable range of frequency deviation, it will achieve the dual goal of reducing the frequency regulation pressure of the synchronous generator and indirectly reducing the abandoned wind volume of the wind turbine. The simulation is carried out on the MATLAB/SIMULINK platform. The results show that the presenting variable coefficient frequency modulation strategy could significant smooth the wind power fluctuation, and allow the reserve power of the doubly-fed wind turbine can fully engaged in frequency modulation which will reduces the frequency modulation pressure of the synchronous generator in the system.

Description: The moisture extraction rate (MER) and energy efficiency of domestic gas clothes dryers, heat-pump clothes dryers and electric clothes dryers were assessed. The assessment was performed with regard to five indices: the MER, specific MER, specific thermal energy consumption for dehumidification (mSPC), energy efficiency (ηt) and primary energy efficiency (η1). The effects of the dry mass of clothes (mBD) and the ambient temperature on the performance of the clothes dryers were evaluated. The experiments were divided into two parts. In the first part, the ambient temperature was 20°C, and mBD was set as 1.5, 2.5, 3.5, 4.5 and 6 kg. In the second part, mBD was 3.5 kg, and the performance of the dryers was tested at ambient temperatures of 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, 15 and 20°C. The experimental results indicated that the gas dryer had the highest MER the heat-pump dryer had the best performance with regard to energy conservation and all three types of dryers had a higher MER and energy efficiency when the ambient temperature increased. The performance of the gas dryer was lower than that of heat-pump dryer when the temperature was 20°C. But when the temperature was

Description: In the current work, the influences of titanium oxide (TO) on nanocomposites using epoxy (EP) resin have been investigated. EP resin was added to various contents in terms of volume of TO (6%). Based on the casting method, the TO-EP nanocomposites were prepared. Mechanical properties in terms of tensile, impact and hardness properties exhibited improvements in the mechanical results of the TO-EP nanocomposites. The experimental results exhibited that the enhancement in the tensile strength, impact, and hardness was found to be 14 MPa, 40.1 J/mm2 and 228.9 HV, respectively. Moreover, the effect of the strength has decreased compared with pointing to brittleness that increased the TO-EP nanocomposites. Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) analysis was used to perform a microstructure analysis which in turn revealed how TO obstruction the cracks propagation in the nanocomposites. The interface between the TO and the EP nanocomposites was observed using the FESEM images. The results highlighted that the TO-EP nanocomposites can be used a wide range of industrial applications such as biomedical application.

Description: Hotels hold an important role in the energy efficiency policies of the European Union (EU), as they are typically ranked among the top energy consumers in the non-residential sector. However, a significant amount of the energy used in hotels is wasted, leaving ample room for enhancing energy-efficiency and resource conservation. Indeed, energy refurbishment of the hotel building stock is crucial in order to reach the nearly zero energy building (nZEB) status imposed by EU Directives for energy efficiency, and also an important pillar to achieve the energy targets for 2030 and the transition towards climate-neutral levels by 2050. A typical 4-star hotel in operation in Faro (Portugal) was used as a case study in order to establish energy performance indicators for nZEB hotels in three European cities, taking into account the influence of the climatic context, the technical feasibility and cost effectiveness of the best energy retrofit packages. The study started after the calibration of the building energy model by means of an energy audit and measured data, in order to have a baseline model that represents well the actual energy use of the hotel in the reference location. The building energy model was developed by using DesignBuilder/EnergyPlus software. The validated model was then used to assess the effect of the best retrofit interventions (energy efficiency measures and active solar systems) in order to set minimum energy performance requirements and to reach cost-optimal levels and nZEB levels for refurbished hotels. A significant energy-saving potential was found for the cost-optimal benchmarks, and the obtained nZEB levels can be achieved under technically and economically conditions for the selected cities: Faro, London and Athens.

Description: Prefabricated buildings constructed to be used in a specific region cannot be assumed to work unconditionally in different climates around the world. It is important to develop passive house solutions for each location, suitable for the actual climate and geographic conditions. Shelters could be used in different applications such as refugee housing or telecommunication stations. Photovoltaic energy could cover the electricity consumption of these shelters. Shelters for different applications should be usable in all weather conditions, and because of that different climate zones were chosen. A full study about three climate zones was done to study the different factors that play a significant rule in choosing the location of the shelter. In this study, prefabricated housing was designed to ensure thermal comfort by doing structure design changes and using solar energy as an energy source. Three different locations have been chosen to be able to perform the best structure and components design for every location, taking into consideration the assumptions taken in each place. The total photovoltaic system was designed with a capacity of hot, moderate and cold climate zones with 2.0, 1.8 and 3.45 kWp, respectively, along with energy plus the production of 38% in the hot, 47% in the moderate and 28% in the cold climate.

Description: From the last few years, the use of efficient ejector in refrigeration systems has been paid a lot of attention. In this article a description of a refrigeration system that combines a basic vapor compression refrigeration cycle with an ejector cooling cycle is presented. A one-dimensional mathematical model is developed using the flow governing thermodynamic equations based on a constant area ejector flow model. The model includes effects of friction at the constant-area mixing chamber. The current model is based on the NIST-REFPROP database for refrigerant property calculations. The model has basically been used to determine the effect of the ejector geometry and operating conditions on the performance of the whole refrigeration system. The results show that the proposed model predicts ejector performance, entrainment ratio and the coefficient of performance of the system and their sensitivity to evaporating and generating temperature of the cascade refrigeration cycle. The simulated performance has been then compared with the available experimental data from the literature for validation.

Description: Cement-based materials have been widely used in bridge construction. In order to further improve their performance, this study analyzed the modification and optimization functions of nano-SiO2 materials, designed test specimens with different content of nano-SiO2 and conducted experiments on their flow performance, compression resistance, bending resistance and impermeability. The results showed that the flow performance of the materials decreased and the impermeability decreased with the increase of nano-SiO2 content. The compressive strength and flexural strength are the best when the content of nano-SiO2 is 1%. On the whole, the best content of nano-SiO2 is 1%; when the content of nano-SiO2 is 1%, all the properties of the specimens are good, which is more conducive to the construction of bridges in various complex environments. The research in this paper has made some contributions to the further application of nano-SiO2 in the optimization of building materials, which is conducive to the better development of building materials.

Description: As one of the most promising and convenient heating service to replace coal-fired boilers and electric heaters due to its high energy efficiency, a heat pump has received more and more attention for the economical application and extensive research. The injection technology can be used to improve the heat pump performance. Currently, the injection ratio and pressure ratio are usually used to characterize the effects of injection styles on its performance. This is not conducive to its practical operation control because of additional cost increase. In this work, the effects of two injection cycles due to two injection paths were characterized with openings of a sub-cooling electronic expansion valve, comparatively tested and analyzed. Test results demonstrate that the heating capacities (Qh), electricity power (EP) and coefficient of performance with the refrigerant injection into compressor (CRI) are more than those with the injection into accumulator (ARI), and the overall effect with the CRI is positive because the Qh improvement outperforms EP increase. For example, the maximum Qh with the CRI at 55, 60 and 85 rps were 8.1%, 7.7% and 18.3% higher than those without the CRI, and 7.3%, 6.7% and 19.0% higher than those with the ARI. The thermodynamic model was used to analyze the experimental results and expound the mechanism of the influence of injection path on the performance of heat pump. This work provides guidance for improving energy efficiency in common areas and enhancing Qh in cold areas.

Description: In order to reduce the cost of central air conditioning, we need to reduce its energy consumption. This paper briefly introduced Internet of Things and the energy-saving and comfort monitoring system of central air conditioning based on the Internet of Things. The system took comfort degree as constraint and energy efficiency as objective to control energy saving of central air conditioning. Company X in Guanghan, Sichuan, China, was taken as an example for analysis. The system was compared with the energy-saving control system which took temperature and power as constraints. Compared with before the energy-saving control, the proportion of air conditioning downtime in the working hours of employees increased after the implementation of the two kinds of energy-saving control systems, and the proportion of downtime under the energy-saving control system designed in this study was larger; in addition, after the control of the two kinds of energy-saving systems, the energy efficiency of the air conditioning significantly improved, and the air conditioning under the control of the energy-saving system proposed in this study had more improvement in energy efficiency and higher energy-saving efficiency. The energy-saving control method proposed in this study can effectively reduce the power consumption of the central air conditioning in the office.

Description: The effect of surface wettability on droplet impact on spherical surfaces is studied with the CLSVOF method. When the impact velocity is constant, with the increase in the contact angle (CA), the maximum spreading factor and time needed to reach the maximum spreading factor (tmax) both decrease; the liquid film is more prone to breakup and rebound. When CA is constant, with the impact velocity increasing, the maximum spreading factor increases while tmax decreases. With the curvature ratio increasing, the maximum spreading factor increases when CA is between 30 and 150°, while it decreases when CA ranges from 0 to 30°.

Description: The non-centrifugal sugar (NCS) industry is one of the oldest small-scale cottage industry in India, whose technological features are not changed for several decades due to which the production and consumption of NCS has reduced significantly. One way to attend this problem is to select the best and sustainable methods among the existing technologies at various stages in the production process. In the production of NCS, juice extraction is the primary and essential process. The present work gives an insight to a logical procedure for selecting a suitable and sustainable juice extraction method for improving the NCS production using multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) technique. The selection process is based on 11 evaluation criteria covering various sustainable factors viz. technological, economic and environmental factors. Fuzzy analytical hierarchical process (FAHP) integrated with elimination et choix traduisant la realité method is the MCE technique considered for selecting the most appropriate crushing method among five alternatives. The results indicated that the power-operated single horizontal crusher is the most suitable and sustainable crushing method for improving the production rate of NCS. The same technique can be used for the other process unit of the NCS production to improve the productivity and sustainability of NCS.

Description: The concept of green buildings has recently arisen in order to contribute to solving some environmental, energy and economic issues. To meet the green building requirements, this paper describes an integrated design approach to improve the energy and water efficiency of the mid-rise residential buildings in Jordan using the eQUEST energy simulation tool. The results show that savings of 77.9% in the annual requirements of electricity, 65.0% in the requirements of diesel oil and 19.5% in the indoor water consumption can be achieved. Finally, the Jordanian green building model had achieved 44 points in the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design green building rating system and will have the ‘Certified’ classification.

Description: Biogas is deemed as one of the most promising renewable fuels emerging in the past several decades. At present, biogas is mainly applied to cooking for substituting fossil fuels. However, biogas is rarely reported to be used for space heating. In this paper, we designed a biogas-fired partially premixed burner for gas-fired wall-mounted boilers, which has the heat input of 25 kW and can be used for space heating and water heater tank heating. The reference gas was assumed as 60% of methane (CH4) and 40% of CO2, and the burner port area was designed as 4744.5 mm2 according to the calculation. Then, experiments were conducted to study the performance of this burner. Jet diameters were modified in order to investigate their effects on heat input, primary air ratio and flame stability of the burner. The results indicate that the burner shows superior performance when the jet diameter is 2.0 mm. Meanwhile, the primary air ratio (${alpha}^{prime }$) satisfies the design requirement. Moreover, a gas-fired wall-mounted boiler with this burner was examined to investigate the influence of different biogas composition on exhaust emissions and thermal efficiency. The results show that the concentration of CO in the flue gas meets the national standard when CH4 varied from 40% to 60% in the biogas. However, the thermal efficiency of the biogas-fired wall-mounted boiler reduces greatly with the increase of CH4 percentage.

Description: Cooling towers are widely used not only for commercial and industrial purposes but also for cooling power plant. In Korea, coal-fired power plants and nuclear power plants are generally located on the coast, while most combined-power plants are located inland and use cooling towers to condense steam. The operation rate of power plants in Korea highly depends on government energy policies. In the future, it is expected that the need for cooling tower water for inland power plant will increase. Since power plant is one of the massive water-consuming facilities, methods for water saving of cooling tower should be prepared. Also, in the industrial sector, plume is constantly raising social conflicts between residents and manufactures. Basically, similar technologies can be applied to water saving and plume abatement. In this study, the performance of the condensing module (outdoor-air-condensing method) using outside air was tested first. This module has an advantage in that cooling heat source is not necessary. But an excessive increase of fan air volume is required. We tested a membrane-dehumidification method that selectively transfers water vapor by applying a membrane module. The results showed that membrane module required a large amount of energy to generate vapor pressure difference and it had a disadvantage in energy usage. Since the membrane method considered requires a high bypass airflow for higher dehumidification, it also has a disadvantage similar to that of the outdoor air module. Finally, the dehumidification/regeneration module (heat-pump method) gave the best performance in terms of water saving and plume abatement.

Description: Since the reform and opening up, with the development of China’s economy, the demand for tourism has been increased. The traditional agriculture has not been able to satisfy the diversified consumption demand; as a result, the rural ecotourism develops rapidly. Based on such a situation, the data envelopment analysis (DEA) model was used in this study; the relevant data of Guangxi province such as the number of star hotels and number of tourists were referred to. The efficiency of rural ecotourism space was calculated. According to evaluation analysis of spatial dynamic efficiency, it could be found that although the comprehensive technical efficiency of the southeast coastal areas was lower than 1, it was still higher than other regions. The pure technical efficiency of many regions was equal to 1, and the scale benefits were increasing. Regions with moderate political and economic levels had high pure technical efficiency and maintained above the national level, but they were relatively small in scale and needed to increase input indicators. However, the comprehensive technical efficiency of relatively backward areas in northwest China was relatively low, which remained at about 0.3. Therefore, more investment and government support are needed to expand the scale.

Description: With the depth increasing and the improvement of mining mechanization of the coal mine, heat hazard is becoming more and more serious, the ice cooling system is gradually promoted and applied in China for recent years, but the cooling capacity and energy efficiency ratio (EER) test and analysis for such system is seldom reported. The cooling capacity and EER of the refrigerating equipment of an ice cooling system of a coal mine are tested and analyzed in Shandong Province in this paper. The test result indicates that the refrigerating capacity and EER are lower and both the pre-cooling units and the ice making system have a large variable range. It points out that it should not evaluate the ice cooling system by the test data only in this mine but expect more test data and analysis of the ice cooling system in other coal mines to get a more scientific conclusion. And the test, analysis and comparison for different kinds of cooling system are also expected to explore suitable cooling system while a full consideration of the geological conditions and other factors of the mine are taken into consideration.

Description: Solar box cookers draw attention of many researchers across the globe as a promising renewable energy application for cooking purposes. Compared to other types available in literature, solar box cookers are more in the centre of interest owing to their simple and low-cost design, emerging thermodynamic performance figures, high durability and reliable cooking processes without any risk of burning food. On the other hand, cooking power and overall thermal performance of solar box cookers are still somewhat challenging to compete with the conventional cooking systems for the climatic conditions with low solar radiation potential like the Black Sea Region of Turkey. Within the scope of this research, a novel solar box cooker is devised, fabricated and tested to overcome the said shortcomings of traditional solar box cookers through natural and recycled materials. Double-glazed structure having 16-mm-thick air between two 6-mm-thick thermally resistive clear glasses is considered for aperture glazing with an area of 0.16 m2. The oven area has a depth of 350 mm, and it is entirely painted matte black for maximum solar absorption. The oven body made of stainless steel sheets is encountered by a latent heat storage medium filled by natural beeswax product, waste of propolis. Propolis is a resinous mixture that is used for protection of beehives, from either climatic changes or diseases. Polyphenols rich in balsamic part of the structure is extracted by alcohol than used for many apitherapic purposes. The remaining pulp or waste is not considered. In this study, it is used as green chemistry agents. It is found that water temperature in the cooking pot is kept over 40°C till very late hours as a consequence of latent heat storage. First figure of merit is determined to be 0.08, and the thermal efficiency of the cooker varies from 7.47 to 4.54%.

Description: Energy pile group is an important component of ground source heat pumps with foundation piles as ground heat exchangers. Among different energy piles, those with spiral pipes have a large heat exchange area between the pipe and the concrete, achieving good heat exchanging performance and wide applications. To analyze the influence of geometrical parameters (pile layout, pile spacing and pile depth) and external parameter (groundwater velocity) on the heat transfer of spiral-coil energy pile groups, a three-dimensional analytical model of spiral-coil energy pile groups with seepage is used, considering the thermal interaction among different piles, the geometry of spiral pipe and the velocity of groundwater. The soil temperature distribution in the energy pile group is studied under conditions with different factors (pile layouts: 3 × 2, L shape and line shape; pile spacing distances: 3, 5 and 7 m; pile depths: 10, 30 and 50 m; and groundwater velocities: 0, 1.2 × 10−6 and 2.0 × 10−6 m/s). The 3-year outlet fluid temperature of energy pile group affected by the above different factors under different inlet fluid temperatures and velocities or soil thermal exchange ratios is investigated. Results show that for the low fluid velocity inside the piles, the influence of above factors on the thermal performance of energy piles is more obvious. Large groundwater velocity, line shape pile layout, large pile spacing distance and short pile depth can alleviate the long-term temperature variation caused by unbalanced soil heat exchange. This work will facilitate the research, design and application of the energy pile group in ground source heat pumps.

Description: Waste heat is an environmental issue in the world. There are some technologies that can be used to recovery the waste heat, one of which is thermoacoustic cooler technology. Thermoacoustic technology can be divided into two parts: one is thermoacoustic engine and cooler. To design the cooler system having high efficiency and lower onset heating temperature, the effect of mean pressure is investigated. By increasing mean pressure from 0.5 to 3 MPa, the heating temperature generating acoustic power can be decreased from 831 to 580 K. Moreover, 15% of Thermodynamic upper limit value of the whole cooler system is achieved.

Description: In this paper, oblique impact of a single rain droplet on super-hydrophobic surface with randomly distributed rough structures was investigated by lattice Boltzmann method. The effects of the impact angle of the droplet as well as the skewness and kurtosis of rough surface on the bouncing ability of the droplet were in this paper. It was found that the oblique impact can effectively reduce the contact time in the process of droplet bouncing off, because the energy consumption caused by the pinning effect is reduced. Moreover, the contact time most possibly reaches the shortest when the impact angle is 45°. Decreasing the skewness and keeping the kurtosis around 4.0 can enhance the bouncing ability during the droplet oblique impact on randomly distributed rough surfaces. The results are useful for the design of building structures.

Description: At present, higher greenhouse gas (GHG) have triggered global efforts to reduce their level as much as possible for sustainable development. Carbon dioxide is one of the imperative anthropogenic emissions due to its increased excessive accumulation in the environment. Thus, serious attention is required to reduce the level of CO2 using advanced and efficient CO2 capture technologies. Carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) technologies may play an important role in this direction. At present, solvent-based sorbents are being utilized in CO2 capture for various industrial processes. In this category, the characters of non-materials are playing a crucial role to improve the CO2 absorption capacity of the process. This study is mainly focused on the role of nanotechnology in the post-combustion CO2 absorption process. The functions of nanomaterials and nanoparticles have been studied in the present work. Additionally, various challenges related to absorption efficiency using nanomaterials have been discussed. The study concludes that the higher thermal stability and exceptional properties of nanomaterials popularized them for use in CO2 capture processes.

Description: : Global climate change has become the greatest threat to mankind, endangering the ecological security of the earth and the long-term development of human society. Therefore, how to effectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions and curb the trend of global warming has become a common challenge facing all countries in the world. Fossil energy combustion is the fundamental cause of climate change. In this paper, the price return series of domestic energy and carbon markets are taken as the research objects. Firstly, the cross-correlation test is used to verify that there is an obvious cross-correlation between the return series of the energy and carbon markets. Based on this, the multifractal characteristics of energy market and carbon market cross-series are empirically studied. The empirical results show that there is an interactive correlation between energy and carbon markets and this relationship has multifractal characteristics; the interactive correlation between return series has multifractal characteristics. The long-range correlation between small fluctuations and large fluctuations and the fat tail distribution of return series are all reasons for the formation of multifractality. These conclusions will help to understand the non-linear dependence and potential dynamic mechanism between energy and carbon markets in China.

Description: This study presents the preparation and property characterization of biomass aerogels as sound absorption materials. Biomasses were chosen to prepare aerogels through the freeze-drying method. Results indicated that four components may have different effects on the aerogel pore structure, and the aerogel formula was thus optimized to reach the best sound absorption. Within the experimental range, biomass aerogel with the optimized formula had an average sound efficiency 0.352, density 0.047 g/cm3 and porosity 94.46 ± 0.04%. It shows better sound absorption performance than traditional sound absorption cotton. These results demonstrate the high sound absorption potential of biomass aerogels for building applications.

Description: Aiming at the problem that the traditional flying capacitor equalization circuit has long equilibrium time and complicated structure, based on the in-depth study of the existing capacitor equalization method, this paper proposes a bidirectional DC-DC equalization circuit topology based on switch matrix. Structure, improve circuit switch network structure, reduce the number of switches and capacitors in the circuit, simplify the equalization structure, combined with the advantages of bidirectional DC-DC converters can be used in both directions, according to the difference between the average voltage of the battery pack and the voltage of each cell. Any two cells in the battery pack areused for equalization purposes. By establishing an experimental test platform verification, the results show that the topology can reduce the equalization time under the premise of simplifying the circuit structure when equalizing any two cells.

Description: In domestic buildings, water is generally heated by an immersion type electric water heater, equipped with a thermostat as one unit, which is fitted at the bottom of the tank. Despite these systems are driven by electric energy, which is not favorable compared to direct solar water heaters, they are still widely used due to the practicality and low installation costs. In current use of electric water heaters, thermostat position and water set-point temperature are crucial and these parameters should be optimized for efficient and economic use of such systems. In this study, the impact of placing the thermostat at three different elevations; namely near the bottom, in the middle and near the top of an EWH is experimentally investigated. In addition, the effect of temperature setting of the thermostat near the bottom of the tank, on the performance of the EWH is experimentally investigated. Data were obtained for 5 L/min discharging rate of the heated water. The discharge efficiencies are found to be higher for the thermostat position at the bottom, while the discharge efficiencies for thermostat positions in the middle and near the top are very close but lower than that of the one near the bottom.

Description: Several passive cooling design techniques are known for reducing solar heat gain through building envelope in summer season. These include the use of phase change materials (PCM), which has received an increased attention over the last years, and the strategy of increasing the above-sheathing ventilation (ASV) in ventilated roofs. However, few studies combine both technologies to maximise the building resilience in hot season. The effect of including a PCM layer into a ventilated roof is numerically analysed here in two different configurations: firstly, laid on the roof deck (PCM1 case) and, secondly, suspended in the middle of the ASV channel (PCM2 case). A computational fluid dynamics model was implemented to simulate airflow and heat transfer around and through the building envelope, under 3 days of extreme hot conditions in summer with high temperatures and low wind speed. Results showed slight differences in terms of mean temperatures at the different roof layers, although temperature fluctuations at deck in the PCM1 case were smaller than half of those estimated for the benchmark case. However, PCM2 configuration achieved a daily reduction of about 10 Wh/m2 (18%) in building energy load with respect to the benchmark case, whilst PCM1 got only 4% due to the lower ventilation at night time. Therefore, a suspended PCM layer in the ASV channel would be a better measure in terms of energy performance than laid on the deck surface, although this last option significantly decreases thermal stress of the insulation layer.

Description: With the increasing pace of urban life, people are yearning more and more for a slow-paced rural life. Rural ecotourism is a new type of tourism produced for people to experience rural scenery. In order to ensure the sustainable development of rural eco-tourism, it is necessary to analyze its planning in many aspects. In this study, Tianjin rural eco-tourism was analyzed using the superiority, weakness, opportunity and threats analysis method. Then, according to the analysis, the superiority, weakness, opportunity and threat were obtained, and they were quantitatively analyzed by means of a questionnaire. The results showed that the development of Tianjin rural eco-tourism had four superiorities, i.e. convenient transportation, rich water resources, rich animal and plant resources and rich eco-tourism resources; three weakness, i.e. homogeneous content, unclear theme and low quality of staff; three opportunities, i.e. government support, effective combination of local culture with tourism activities and increased demand for tourism; and two threats, i.e. fierce competition among peers and diversified demands of tourists. In the comprehensive quantitative analysis, the comprehensive scores of superiorities, weakness, opportunities and threats were 3.6, −2.8, 4.4 and −4.4, respectively. To sum up, Tianjin rural ecotourism has superiorities over weakness and equivalent opportunities and threats; i.e. it is basically in a state of sustainable development.

Description: For areas with hot summer and cold winter, air conditioning is an essential tool to improve the living environment, but the traditional air conditioning needs to consume a lot of energy in cooling and heating, the fan operation noise is large and the sense of blowing will be uncomfortable. This paper briefly introduced the basic structure of a ground-source heat pump-floor radiant air conditioning system and the control strategy which was used for regulating the operation of the air conditioning system. Then, in order to ensure the appropriate comfort and reduce energy consumption, the control strategy was optimized. An experimental room in Xining, Qinghai province, was taken as an example for analysis. The results showed that the thermal comfort under the control strategy proposed in this study was more stable at the moderate degree and the temperature was slightly higher under the traditional control strategy, although the indoor temperature fluctuation under the optimal control strategy was large and the temperature was slightly lower than that under the traditional control strategy; under the control strategy proposed in this study, the air conditioning system had shorter operation time and less power consumption.

Description: The University of Technology in Baghdad addresses problems related to the corrosion of metals. In the present investigation, a thiophene derivative, namely, 2-acetylthiophene thiosemicarbazone (2-AT), was synthesized and examined as a corrosion inhibitor for mild steel in a 1-M hydrochloric acid environment by using weight loss and scanning electron microscopic techniques. The inhibition efficiency of this inhibitor increases with increase in concentration, which offered an inhibition efficiency up to 96%. It was found that the inhibition efficiency decreases with long immersion time. The temperature effect on the inhibition performance was studied at various immersion times and revealed that the inhibition efficiency decreases with increasing temperature. The adsorption of the inhibitor on the surface of mild steel in the corrosive environment followed the Langmuir isotherm. The results of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) reveal that the 2-AT molecules confirmed the presence of a protective layer on the surface of a mild steel sample. The density-functional theory as a quantum modeling technique which is used to study the electronic structure reveals that the obtained findings were found to be consistent with the experimental results.

Description: The development of a low-carbon economy is an inevitable choice for the world to coordinate industrial economic growth and environmental issues actively. At the same time, science and technology are the cornerstones for the development of a low-carbon economy. The equipment manufacturing industry (EMI) in China is known as the base of the low-carbon sector. Still, the research of coordinating industry carbon emission and economic growth from the perspective of science and technology is insufficient. For this reason, this work comprehensively analyzed the economic development and carbon emission of China’s EMI. The DEA (data envelopment analysis) Malmquist method was used to measure the transformation efficiency of scientific and technological achievements of the EMI from 2009 to 2017. The results can show that: (1) the economic benefits of China’s EMI were increasing year by year, but the growth rate is declining. With the optimization of industrial structure, the energy consumption and carbon emission of the industry have improved, but there is still a large gap between different sectors; (2) the achievement transformation of EMI decreases by year due to the influence of technological progress efficiency; and (3) in terms of sector data efficiency in 2017, there is redundancy in the investment of general EMI (B2) and special EMI (B3). This work can provide a reference for the development of countries dominated by industry and to jointly realize the sustainable development of the world economy.

Description: The viscosity and flow rate as rheological characteristics are fundamental in evaluating the nanofillers in processing the polyethylene-nanotube (PE-NT) composite in injecting molding. The purpose of this investigation is to study the rheological conduct of PE-NT composite plastic feedstock through capillary rheometry. For the purpose of obtaining a flawless component, the feedstock is used as a critical parameter, and care must be taken while introducing the raw materials with high solid load and hence perfect flowability. The shear rate viscosity of different feedstocks at an NT ratio extending at 0–3 wt.% has been determined at L/D equal to 10 die and a load extending at 40.0–80.0 KGF at temperatures 140.0, 150.0 and 160.0°C. The three specimens’ viscosity was measured in order to exhibit that the corresponding flow conduct factor varies from 0.40 to 0.70, demonstrating the non-Newtonian behavior of the specimens. The three specimens’ activation energies at the studied temperature degrees were evaluated and turned out to be 36.5–69.88 kJ/mol according to the applied load.

Description: Thermodynamic analysis including energetic and exergetic analysis is carried out employing Engineering Equation Solver for the five modified cycles: dual expansion cycle, internal heat exchanger cycle, work recovery cycle, work recovery with internal heat exchanger cycle and vortex tube expansion cycle. Contours are developed to study the effect of gas cooler temperatures and evaporator temperatures on the system performance and optimum gas cooler pressure. The modified cycle with work recovery turbine offers relatively higher COP and higher exergetic efficiency with lower compressor discharge pressure. The exergy loss in compressor, gas cooler, throttle valve and vortex tube (VT) are considerably higher than that in internal heat exchanger (IHX), evaporator and turbine. It is observed that COP of modified cycle with VT is slightly less than that with IHX, whereas the cycle with work recovery turbine brings the highest COP with the improvement of 25% at the gas cooler exit temperature of 305 K and evaporator temperature of 248 K.

Description: In this study, the impact of social norms on farmers’ behavior of cultivated land protection and the related mechanism was investigated in terms of direct effect and mediating effect and further verified by logistic and mediation effect estimation of different organic fertilizer application behaviors. An empirical analysis of the data collected from Xiajin County of Shandong, China, revealed that (1) perceived social norms can exert significant and positive effects on the behavior of farmers in cultivated land protection; (2) social norms can stimulate farmers to adopt cultivated land protection behaviors by affecting their related value cognition, risk confidence and skills; and (3) the mediating mechanisms varied in the impact of perceived social norms on different cultivated land protection behaviors, with farmyard manure application being significantly moderated by value cognition, risk confidence and skills, in contrast to a major impact of social network on the application of commercial organic fertilizers. This study enriched the theoretical interpretation of the impact of social norms on farmers’ behavior of cultivated land protection and provided useful information on activation of farmers’ cultivated land protection behavior to promote the sustainable development of agriculture.

Description: The ignition and explosion of coal dust are significant hazards in coal mines. In this study, the minimum ignition temperature and energy of non-stick coal dust were investigated empirically at different working conditions to identify the key factors that influence the sensitivity and characteristics of coal dust explosions. The results showed that for a given particle size, the minimum ignition temperature of the coal dust layer was inversely related to the thickness of the coal dust layer. Meanwhile, when the layer thickness was kept constant, the minimum ignition temperature of the coal dust layer decreased with smaller coal dust particle sizes. Over the range of particle sizes tested (25–75 μm), the minimum ignition temperature of the coal dust cloud gradually increased when larger particles was used. At the same particle size, the minimum ignition temperature of the coal dust layer was much lower than that of the coal dust cloud. Furthermore, the curves of minimum ignition energy all exhibited a minimum value in response to changes to single independent variables of mass concentration, ignition delay time and powder injection pressure. The interactions of these three independent variables were also examined, and the experimental results were fitted to establish a mathematical model of the minimum ignition energy of coal dust. Empirical verification demonstrated the accuracy and practicability of the model. The results of this research can provide an experimental and theoretical basis for preventing dust explosions in coal mines to enhance the safety of production.

Description: The demands of specific requirements related to thermal comforts, such as temperature, relative humidity, inside air exchange and other factors required in a hospital operating rooms, have necessitated the development of energy-efficient heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems and efficient heat-recovery system using a heat-pipe heat exchanger (HPHE). The experiment was conducted by using HPHEs having three, six and nine rows, with four heat pipes in each row, arranged in a staggered configuration with a variation of fresh-air inlet temperature and velocity. The theoretical analysis was conducted using the ε-NTU method for predicting the effectiveness, outlet temperature of the evaporator side and energy recovery of the HPHE. The experimental results indicated that increasing the air-inlet temperature in the evaporator section and the number of rows increased the HPHE effectiveness but increasing the air-inlet velocity reduced the effectiveness. The highest effectiveness of 62.6% was obtained at an air-inlet temperature of 45°C with an air-inlet velocity of 2 m/s and a 9-row HPHE. The energy recovery of the HPHE increased with the number of rows, air-inlet temperature and air velocity in the evaporator section. The ε-NTU method can be used as a comparison method in the analysis of heat-recovery systems that apply HPHE air conditioning systems. Heat pipes that utilize cold-air exhaust from a room in an HVAC system can enhance efficiency and reduce emissions.

Description: Urbanization is a global trend determined primarily by excessive population growth, particularly in the developing countries such as Egypt. The configuration and boundaries of urbanization and their model can be observed at a distance of space and time. In this research, geographic information system and remote sensing were used to analyze urbanization and trends in the past 30 years of Mansoura City, which is one of the largest medium-sized cities in Egypt. Four Landsat images, obtained in 1985, 1995, 2005 and 2015, were adjusted and compared using the ArcGIS software. The classified images were analyzed to determine urbanization trends in Mansoura city during the three periods 1985–1995, 1995–2005 and 2005–2015. The results of the change disclosure showed areas and trends in urbanization. The urban area has grown by approximately five times over 30 years. The results showed that the eastern direction was predominant during the periods (1985–1995) and (1995–2005) with 53 and 53% of the city total growth, respectively. During the period (2005–2015), the northern trend was dominant with 38% of the city total growth. This research promotes future urban planning strategies by evaluating temporal spatial transformation and urbanization trends.

Description: Reactive extraction, a novel technique, was experimentally investigated for the removal of propionic acid, which is usually present in low concentrations in aqueous solutions. The experiments were conducted according to statistical design to develop an appropriate regression model. This was aimed at analyzing and optimizing the process variables and extraction efficiency for propionic acid reactive extraction from dilute aqueous streams using trioctylamine as extractant and 1-decanol as organic diluent. Response surface methodology in combination with Box–Behnken design involving 17 experimental runs was utilized for the propionic acid reactive extraction in this study. Three independent process variables were chosen as temperature (T), initial propionic acid concentration (CPAO) in the aqueous phase and trioctylamine composition (CTOA) in the organic phase. The statistical design analysis demonstrated that the propionic acid concentration and TOA composition had a significant effect while temperature had an insignificant effect on the response value as well as an interactive and quadratic effect on the response. The optimum conditions for propionic acid extraction were established as T  =  300.752 K, CTOA  =  18.252 %v/v, CPAO  =  0.408 kmol/m3. Under these optimum conditions, the propionic acid experimental extraction yield was 89.788 %, which was in close conformity with the predicted yield value of 91.939 %.

Description: The volume of Indonesian tea exports to the European Union (EU) decreased by 43% in 2014 because of the EU setting a maximum residue limit of anthraquinone (AQ) for tea as 0.02 mg/kg. The content of AQ in tea leaves increases when there is incomplete combustion in the combustion of firewood for the energy source of withering and drying of tea leaves. This study aims to develop and test a new concept for the direct use of low-temperature geothermal energy with a heat pipe heat exchanger (HPHE) for the withering of tea leaves as a solution for energy sources free from AQ. The geothermal fluid simulators use water, which is heated by heater and flowed by a pump. The HPHE used consists of 42 heat pipes and 181 fins. The heat pipe used has a length of 700 mm with an outer diameter of 10 mm. Each fin is made of aluminum with a thickness of 0.105 mm and a size of 76 × 345 mm2. The results show that the effectiveness of the HPHE varies from 66% to 79.59%. For 100 g of fresh tea leaves, the heating energy produced ranges from 15.21 W to 45.07 W, meaning it can wither tea leaves from 80% (w.b.) to 54% (w.b.) in a variety of 11 h 56 min to only 49.6 min. The Page mathematical model is the best model to represent the behavior of the tea leaves with this HPHE system.

Description: The present study focuses on the organic Rankine cycle (ORC) integrated into an evacuated tube heat pipe (ETHP), whose systems are an alternative solar energy system to low-efficiency planary collectors. In this work, a detailed thermodynamic and artificial neural network (ANN) analysis was conducted to evaluate the solar energy system. One of the key parameters of sustainable approaches focused on exergy efficiency is application of thermal engineering. In addition to this, sustainable engineering approaches nowadays are a necessity for improving the efficiency of all of the engineering research areas. For this reason, the ANN model is used to forecast different types of energy efficiency problems in thermodynamic literature. The examined system consists of two main parts such as the ETHP system and the ORC system used for thermal energy production. With this system, it is aimed to evaluate energy and exergy analysis results by the ANN method in the case of integrating the ORC system to ETHP, which is one of the planar collectors suitable for the roofs of the buildings. Within the scope of this study, the exergy efficiency was evaluated on the developed ANN algorithm. The effect rates of parameters such as pressure, temperature and ambient temperature affecting the exergy efficiency of ORC integrated ETHP were calculated. Ambient temperature was found to be the most influential parameter on exergy efficiency. The exergy efficiency of the whole system has been calculated as ~23.39%. The most suitable BPNN architecture for this case study is recurrent networks with dampened feedback (Jordan–Elman nets). The success rate of the developed BPNN model is 95.4%.

Description: The study on carbon emissions in packaging industry is a very important but easily overlooked field. In order to explore carbon emissions of the packaging life cycle, the wineglass is used as the packaging object to discuss the difference between carbon emissions and costs caused by two new packaging structures and a common packaging structure on the market. The measurement boundary includes raw material collection, raw material processing, packaging manufacturing, transportation and end of life. It was found that reasonable packaging structure instead the buffer function of expanded polyethylene can effectively reduce the carbon emissions and costs.

Description: Currently, there has been an obvious lack of innovation within poultry houses heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system design that deals with both energy efficiency and poultry welfare issues. This paper presents an innovative and renewable heating system for poultry house application to meet the welfare living environment requirement for breeding, to improve the energy efficiency of HVAC system and to decrease fossil fuel consumption and harmful gas emissions. The purpose of this study is to design, develop and test the highly efficient hybrid heating system via an integrated photovoltaic/thermal array with polyethylene heat exchanger coupled to geothermal heat pump system based on the East Midlands’ climate conditions in the UK. The numerical model is established based on finite volume method and solved by using Engineering Equation Solver, and a good agreement with less than 15% difference between the numerical and experimental results is achieved. The results indicate that the annual electrical and thermal output are 11867 kWh and 30245 kWh, respectively, which not only could fulfil the poultry house electrical need, but also can provide ~43.5% electricity demand of the heat pump compressor operating.