Methodological framework for assessing the environmental performance related to the disposal of waste and by-products of FCOJ production

Author(s):  
Andréia Marize Rodrigues ◽  
Marcelo Girotto Rebelat ◽  
Amanda Cerqueira ◽  
Juan Arturo Castañeda-Ayarza
Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (24) ◽  
pp. 8409
Author(s):  
Esmaeil Jadidi ◽  
Mohammad Hasan Khoshgoftar Manesh ◽  
Mostafa Delpisheh ◽  
Viviani Caroline Onishi

Integrated solar-assisted gasification cycles (ISGC) have emerged as a more flexible and environmentally friendly solution for producing power, steam, and other high-valued by-products from low-cost opportunity fuels. In this light, this paper investigates a new ISGC system for converting heavy refineries fuels into power and steam utilities while enhancing energy efficiency and economic and environmental performance indicators. In this approach, a solar energy field and a two-pressure heat recovery steam generator were integrated into the ISGC system to improve overall economic and environmental plant viability. The ISGC system was modelled in MATLAB software, and the results were validated using Thermoflex software. Conventional and advanced energy, exergy, exergoeconomic, and exergoenvironmental (4E) analyses were implemented to assess the main performance parameters and identify potential system improvements. The ISGC system produced 319.92 MW of power by feeding on 15.5 kg/s of heavy refinery fuel, with a thermal efficiency of 50% and exergy efficiency of 54%. The results also revealed an investment cost of $466 million, evaluated at a system cost rate of 446 $/min and an environmental impact rate of 72,796 pts/min. The conventional and advanced 4E analyses unveiled the process economic and environmental feasibilities, particularly for oil-rich countries with high availability of solar resources.


Author(s):  
Victor K. Lyubov ◽  
◽  
Aleksandr M. Vladimirov ◽  

In advanced countries, the dramatic impact of greenhouse gases on the global climate is reduced by replacing fossil fuels with biofuels. This method is being actively encouraged. However, by-products of logging, processing and conversion of wood are classified as difficult to burn fuels due to their high moisture content, low energy density and extremely heterogeneous granulometric composition. A promising direction to increase the energy density and transportability of the timber industry by-products is their granulation. Wood pellet fuel burning in heat-generating plants results in significant increase in their energy and environmental performance. The purpose of the paper is an experimental and calculation study of the energy and environmental performance of 4 MW hot water boilers produced by Polytechnik Luft- und Feuerungstechnik GmbH in the process of burning pine and spruce wood pellets obtained from by-products woodworking. When performing studies, the components of the boiler’s heat balance, gas release, and particulate emissions were determined. Numerical modeling of thermochemical and aerodynamic processes taking place in the boiler combustion chamber was carried out by using the Ansys Fluent three-dimensional simulation software. Together with industrial-operational tests it showed the possibility to reduce the total share of flue gas recirculation into combustion chambers of boiler units to values not exceeding 0.45, in providing an acceptable temperature of combustion products at the combustion chamber outlet and maintaining minimum emissions of carbon and nitrogen monoxides. At the same time, the share of gases fed by recirculation smoke exhausters to the over-bed area of the burner should have higher values than under the reciprocating grates of boilers. Guidelines for comprehensive improvement of wood pellet combustion efficiency in combustion chamber of 4 MW hot water boilers have been developed and implemented. The priorities are: using the air passed through the cooling channels of the setting as secondary air; reducing the rarefaction in the combustion chambers to 30–70 Pa; optimizing the ratio of primary and secondary air, herewith, the share of primary air in the total flow should be 0.26–0.35. Implementation of the developed guidelines allowed to increase the boiler gross efficiency by 0.5–1.8 %, to reduce the aerodynamic resistance of the gas path by 15–20 % and to ensure consistently low emissions of carbon and nitrogen monoxides and soot particles. When designing boiler units for burning wood pellet fuel it is advisable to place heating surfaces in the combustion chamber, included in the circulation circuit of the boiler. This will increase the efficiency and life cycle of the boiler unit.


Author(s):  
Linda Hagman ◽  
Roozbeh Feiz

Abstract The transition toward a circular and biobased economy requires the biorefineries and bio-based industries to become more resource efficient with regards to their waste and by-product management. Organic by-products and waste streams can be an important source of value if used in feasible pathways that not only have a low environmental impact but also preserve or recover their energy, nutrients, and other potentially valuable components. Through development of a multi-criteria assessment framework and its application on a real case, this article provides methodological and practical insights on decision making for enhanced by-product management. Our framework includes 8 key areas and 18 well-defined indicators for assessing the environmental performance, feasibility, and long-term risk of each alternative. We studied six different management options for the stillage by-product of a Swedish wheat-based biorefinery and our results shows that the most suitable options for this biorefinery are to use the stillage either as animal fodder or as feedstock for local biogas production for vehicle fuel. This multi-criteria approach can be used by bio-based industrial actors to systematically investigate options for by-product management and valorisation for a circular and bio-based economy. Graphic Abstract


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (21) ◽  
pp. 11693
Author(s):  
Mayra L. Pazmiño ◽  
Angel D. Ramirez

Pork is one of the proteins of greatest demand worldwide. This study has evaluated the environmental sustainability of pig production by applying the life cycle assessment methodological framework. The system boundaries include feed production, pig production, slaughtering, and slaughterhouse by-product management. Within this context, three scenarios have been proposed: the first related to the management of slaughter by-products in an open dump, the second contemplates a model for using these by-products in a rendering plant, and a third where the environmental burden of slaughterhouse co-products is portioned according to economic allocation. The primary data collected correspond to the period of 2019 for the facilities of a producer in a coastal province of Ecuador. Three functional units were used—“1 kg of pig carcass at the slaughterhouse gate”, “1 kg pig live weigh at the farm gate”, and “1 kg of feed at the plant gate”. The impact categories included were global warming, fossil depletion, marine eutrophication, ozone layer depletion, particulate matter formation, photochemical oxidation formation, and terrestrial acidification. The results revealed that the production of ingredients for feed is the largest contributor to the environmental burden of pig and pork. The rendering of slaughter by-products that avoid the production of other fats and proteins results in a lower environmental impact than the other scenarios in almost all categories.


2019 ◽  
pp. 76-84
Author(s):  
Anna Lewandowska

One of the key and simultaneously the most difficult issues within the methodology of the environmental life cycle assessment (as well as related life cycle-based techniques) is solving the problem of the multifunctionality of product systems, which includes the questions crucial for the circular economy: reuse, recycling, transforming by-products into valuable (in the market aspect) co-products, prolonging durability. The present paper aims at familiarizing the questions of multifunctionality and presenting the Circular Footprint Formula (CFF), which has been developed within the pilot stage of the European Commission project related to the common methods of measurement and communication the life cycle environmental performance of products and organisations. An example of PET bottles has been presented and two scenarios have been analysed: (1) a scenario with no recycling (a recycling content = 0 and a recycling rate = 0) and (2) a scenario with recycling (recycling content = 0.24 and recycling rate = 0.24). Calculations of life cycle emissions of CO2 have been made by using the CFF formula. An idea of division environmental burdens and credits between supplier and user of the recycled material has been shown and explained as well.


1997 ◽  
Vol 161 ◽  
pp. 179-187
Author(s):  
Clifford N. Matthews ◽  
Rose A. Pesce-Rodriguez ◽  
Shirley A. Liebman

AbstractHydrogen cyanide polymers – heterogeneous solids ranging in color from yellow to orange to brown to black – may be among the organic macromolecules most readily formed within the Solar System. The non-volatile black crust of comet Halley, for example, as well as the extensive orangebrown streaks in the atmosphere of Jupiter, might consist largely of such polymers synthesized from HCN formed by photolysis of methane and ammonia, the color observed depending on the concentration of HCN involved. Laboratory studies of these ubiquitous compounds point to the presence of polyamidine structures synthesized directly from hydrogen cyanide. These would be converted by water to polypeptides which can be further hydrolyzed to α-amino acids. Black polymers and multimers with conjugated ladder structures derived from HCN could also be formed and might well be the source of the many nitrogen heterocycles, adenine included, observed after pyrolysis. The dark brown color arising from the impacts of comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9 on Jupiter might therefore be mainly caused by the presence of HCN polymers, whether originally present, deposited by the impactor or synthesized directly from HCN. Spectroscopic detection of these predicted macromolecules and their hydrolytic and pyrolytic by-products would strengthen significantly the hypothesis that cyanide polymerization is a preferred pathway for prebiotic and extraterrestrial chemistry.


Author(s):  
Sumio Iijima

We have developed a technique to prepare thin single crystal films of graphite for use as supporting films for high resolution electron microscopy. As we showed elsewhere (1), these films are completely noiseless and therefore can be used in the observation of phase objects by CTEM, such as single atoms or molecules as a means for overcoming the difficulties because of the background noise which appears with amorphous carbon supporting films, even though they are prepared so as to be less than 20Å thick. Since the graphite films are thinned by reaction with WO3 crystals under electron beam irradiation in the microscope, some small crystallites of WC or WC2 are inevitably left on the films as by-products. These particles are usually found to be over 10-20Å diameter but very fine particles are also formed on the film and these can serve as good test objects for studying the image formation of phase objects.


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