scholarly journals Overview of Biodiesel Combustion in Mitigating the Adverse Impacts of Engine Emissions on the Sustainable Human–Environment Scenario

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 5465
Author(s):  
Oyetola Ogunkunle ◽  
Noor A. Ahmed

Air pollution is a precursor to many health issues such as difficulty breathing, asthma, lung and heart diseases, and cancer. This study presents a concise view of biodiesel combustion in mitigating pollutant emissions which are generated by the combustion of fossil fuels, thereby eliminating the negative effects on human health and the environment. Gaseous pollutants such as carbon monoxide, unburned hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, and carbon dioxide are found to be major exhaust emissions from vehicles running on fossil fuels. Excessive exposure to these pollutants was found to be a precursor to reductions in life expectancy via health complications in humans. Greenhouse gas emissions from the transport sector were found to be 24% of total annual emissions, 74.5% of which came from the combustion of fossil fuel in road vehicles. Biodiesel combustion in vehicular engines is established to be a control technology in reducing gaseous pollutants toward building a sustainable and healthy human–environment scenario. The emissions reduction index from the United States National Biodiesel Board showed that the combustion of biodiesel wholly as a transportation fuel decreased total hydrocarbons, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, carbon, and sulfur emissions by 67%, 80%, 48%, and 100%, respectively. Evaluation of emission results from topical literature strongly suggests that the use of biodiesel is effective in the reduction in pollutants, which is beneficial to human and environmental sustainability.

2001 ◽  
Vol 17 (suppl) ◽  
pp. S37-S46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johann Baumgärtner ◽  
Markus Bieri ◽  
Giuseppe Buffoni ◽  
Gianni Gilioli ◽  
Hiremagalur Gopalan ◽  
...  

A concept of an ecosystem approach to human health improvement in Sub-Saharan Africa is presented here. Three factors mainly affect the physical condition of the human body: the abiotic environment, vector-transmitted diseases, and natural resources. Our concept relies on ecological principles embedded in a social context and identifies three sets of subsystems for study and management: human disease subsystems, natural resource subsystems, and decision-support subsystems. To control human diseases and to secure food from resource subsystems including livestock or crops, integrated preventive approaches are preferred over exclusively curative and sectorial approaches. Environmental sustainability - the basis for managing matter and water flows - contributes to a healthy human environment and constitutes the basis for social sustainability. For planning and implementation of the human health improvement scheme, participatory decision-support subsystems adapted to the local conditions need to be designed through institutional arrangements. The applicability of this scheme is demonstrated in urban and rural Ethiopia.


Processes ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (10) ◽  
pp. 1310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Susmozas ◽  
Raquel Martín-Sampedro ◽  
David Ibarra ◽  
María E. Eugenio ◽  
Raquel Iglesias ◽  
...  

Nowadays, the transport sector is one of the main sources of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and air pollution in cities. The use of renewable energies is therefore imperative to improve the environmental sustainability of this sector. In this regard, biofuels play an important role as they can be blended directly with fossil fuels and used in traditional vehicles’ engines. Bioethanol is the most used biofuel worldwide and can replace gasoline or form different gasoline-ethanol blends. Additionally, it is an important building block to obtain different high added-value compounds (e.g., acetaldehyde, ethylene, 1,3-butadiene, ethyl acetate). Today, bioethanol is mainly produced from food crops (first-generation (1G) biofuels), and a transition to the production of the so-called advanced ethanol (obtained from lignocellulosic feedstocks, non-food crops, or industrial waste and residue streams) is needed to meet sustainability criteria and to have a better GHG balance. This work gives an overview of the current production, use, and regulation rules of bioethanol as a fuel, as well as the advanced processes and the co-products that can be produced together with bioethanol in a biorefinery context. Special attention is given to the opportunities for making a sustainable transition from bioethanol 1G to advanced bioethanol.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (18) ◽  
pp. 3720 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammed Kamil ◽  
Khalid Ramadan ◽  
Chaouki Ghenai ◽  
Abdul Ghani Olabi ◽  
Ibrahim T. Nazzal

Transportation is a vital necessity without which the entire world would come to a standstill. The fossil fuels used to power transportation are consumed at rates of approximately 100,000 times their rate of natural formation, and their consumption subjects the human environment and ecosystem to significant damage. As substitutes for fossil-based diesel, second-generation biodiesels can eliminate many of the challenges concerning first-generation biodiesels in terms of their high cost and the food versus fuel debate. The seeds of the date palm tree have significant oil content and are a promising prospective energy source. This study investigated the potential environmental benefits of this biofuel in terms of diesel tailpipe emission reduction. The various blends of palm date biodiesel were produced and matched to fuel standard requirements, resulting in four standard-compatible blends that were tested in a diesel engine at varying operating conditions for speed and load. Although the biodiesel emissions had lower concentrations of CO2, CO, and HC relative to fossil diesel, higher concentrations of NOx were detected. The results suggest that date-seed biodiesel could become a sustainable energy source for the transport sector, although further technical and economic investigations will be required before its wide deployment.


2020 ◽  
pp. 0958305X2097727
Author(s):  
Andrew Adewale Alola ◽  
Festus Victor Bekun

This article extend the body of knowledge in the environmental sustainability literature by exploring the spillover effect across the United States’ carbon emissions from sectoral energy consumption: from the commercial sector (CEM), transport sector (TEM), industrial sector (IEM), residential sector (REM), electric power sector (EEM). From this perspective, this study accounted for world pandemic uncertainty index (WPU) in retrospect of global episodes (coronavirus pandemic), crude oil price (WTI), and disposable income per capita (DIC). To this end, the novel spillover methodology of Diebold and Yilmaz is employed in the context of the United State for the period January 1996-February 2020. Our Study shows that total spillover effect from the forecast error variance decomposition (FEVD) is 51.1%, while the rest 48.9% of the forecast variance is attributed to the idiosyncratic shocks. Furthermore, a significant contribution of 113.9% spillover effect from uncertainty due to pandemics to TME, IEM, REM, EEM, CEM, DIC, and WTI. Our study adds to the spillover index and computed the net spillover index between the outlined variables that shows the variance between the contribution of spillover to and from the spillover dynamics. Importantly, the study found that WTI, DIC, IEM, EEM, and CEM received a net spillover shock of 63.80%, 25.90%, 48.80%, 26.10%, and 53.3% from the total spillover index. However, WPU, TEM and REM are a net transmitter of spillover effect of 111.7%, 56.90%, and 48.50% respectively. These outcomes are instructive as decision-makers, stakeholders, and players in the energy sector and oil/energy market are required to pay more focus on sectors that are a net transmitter of spillover shocks such as the world pandemic uncertainty and as well those that are net receivers.


2021 ◽  
Vol 107 ◽  
pp. 64-75
Author(s):  
Oyetola Ogunkunle ◽  
Noor A. Ahmed

Air pollution, occasioned by the combustion of fossil fuels, is a major precursor to many health challenges. Extensive release of poisonous gaseous pollutants has continued to hamper life expectancy and wellbeing, leading to respiratory diseases, health complications and death of people that particularly live in areas which suffer high concentrations of these pollutants in the air. A proven reference to this is captured as a link to the recent Covid-19 pandemic which has claimed thousands of life since it began spreading around the global community. However, the recent global obligatory lockdown measures enforced to combat the spread of Covid-19 pandemic has shown that there was reduction in pollutant emissions released from industrial and transportation activities. This reduction was found to play a significant role in alleviating the Covid-19 complications in areas which have high levels of air pollution, which is linked to symptoms complications and high level of fatality. As a present and future remedy, the combustion of renewable biodiesel as a replacement for fossil fuels has been recognized to play a significant role in achieving increased contribution of sustainable energy as well as reducing pollutant emissions via its combustion in vehicular engines. In light of this, there is a significant need to develop quality biodiesel that can support global energy security and also ensure environmental sustainability through the reduction of pollutant emissions. More scientific methods are needed to drive biodiesel production technologies toward the development of quality fuels from novel feedstock. This study has, however, been able to highlight the connection between air pollution, Covid-19 fatality, effect of lockdown measures, and biodiesel sustainability in reduction of poisonous gaseous emissions.


2020 ◽  
pp. 403-446
Author(s):  
Paul F. Meier

In an effort to reduce the amount of crude oil used in the United States, a government program was started in 2002 to examine the use of hydrogen as a transportation fuel. In this application, hydrogen is used in a fuel cell vehicle to produce electricity. This allows a vehicle to enjoy the higher energy efficiency of a battery versus a gasoline-powered vehicle, while avoiding the frequent and long charging times needed for an electric vehicle. There are currently other applications for hydrogen in the United States and the world, primarily in refineries and the manufacture of ammonia. Unlike fossil fuels, such as coal, natural gas, and crude oil, there are no natural sources of hydrogen gas. There are several options for producing hydrogen, such as reforming natural gas or gasifying coal or biomass. Alternatively, a renewable energy source, such as wind or solar, could be used to produce hydrogen via water electrolysis.


Transport ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-49
Author(s):  
Florin Mariasiu

The conditions imposed by the renewable energy Directive 2009/28/EC make it mandatory for EU member countries to ensure that by 2020 fossil fuels used in the transport sector contain a 10% component of biofuel. The 10% limit is based on results of experiments conducted by engine manufacturers and researchers in the biofuels domain, which show that this percentage can be used in IC engines without major technical changes to equipment and engine systems. Taking into account that increasing the percentage of biodiesel in blends results in significant reductions of CO2 emissions, an immediate way to surpass the 10% limit is to carry out external and/or internal processes that will act on the physico-chemical properties of those biofuels. This paper presents data and results from experiments examining the process of ultrasonic irradiation of rapeseed oil methyl ester type biodiesel. The results show the effects of the irradiation process on biodiesel physical parameters such as density, kinematic viscosity, speed of sound through the medium, and isentropic bulk modulus. The values of these parameters directly influence the operation, performance and pollutant emissions of diesel engines. Primary results obtained demonstrate the possibilities of using what we call here the B25 blend with low-cost procedures and without major technical intervention in the equipment used to construct diesel engines. Two parameters important for the injection process (kinematic viscosity and density) show equal values for B25Us_irr ultrasonically irradiated for 350 seconds and diesel fuel ultrasonically irradiated for 420 seconds. The range of the achieved NOx pollutant emission reduction was between 18.2% for the ultrasonically irradiated blend B25Us_irr (no load) and 1.4% for the ultrasonically irradiated blend B100Us_irr (100% load), when compared with untreated basic biodiesel.


2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 643-652
Author(s):  
Cristina Richie

In 2014, the United States health care industry produced an estimated 480 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2); nearly 8% of the country's total emissions. The importance of sustainability in health care — as a business reliant on fossil fuels for transportation, energy, and operational functioning — is slowly being recognized. These efforts to green health care are incomplete, since they only focus on health care structures. The therapeutic relationship is the essence of health care — not the buildings that contain the practice. As such, this article will first postulate reasons for a lack of environmental sustainability in US health care. Second, the article will focus on current green health care initiatives in the United States in which patients and physicians participate. Third, the rationale for participation in green initiatives will be explained. Fourth, the article will propose that, based on the environmental values of patients and physicians, health care insurance plans and health care insurance companies can be targeted for green health care reform, thereby closing the loop of sustainable health care delivery.


Author(s):  
Peter Rez

Transportation efficiency can be measured in terms of the energy needed to move a person or a tonne of freight over a given distance. For passengers, journey time is important, so an equally useful measure is the product of the energy used and the time taken for the journey. Transportation requires storage of energy. Rechargeable systems such as batteries have very low energy densities as compared to fossil fuels. The highest energy densities come from nuclear fuels, although, because of shielding requirements, these are not practical for most forms of transportation. Liquid hydrocarbons represent a nice compromise between high energy density and ease of use.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 1880
Author(s):  
Todd Chou ◽  
Vasileios Kosmas ◽  
Michele Acciaro ◽  
Katharina Renken

Wind-assisted ship propulsion (WASP) technology seems to be a promising solution toward accelerating the shipping industry’s decarbonization efforts as it uses wind to replace part of the propulsive power generated from fossil fuels. This article discusses the status quo of the WASP technological growth within the maritime transport sector by means of a secondary data review analysis, presents the potential fuel-saving implications, and identifies key factors that shape the operational efficiency of the technology. The analysis reveals three key considerations. Firstly, despite the existing limited number of WASP installations, there is a promising trend of diffusion of the technology within the industry. Secondly, companies can achieve fuel savings, which vary depending on the technology installed. Thirdly, these bunker savings are influenced by environmental, on-board, and commercial factors, which presents both opportunities and challenges to decision makers.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document