Smart Products Enable Smart Regulations—Optimal Durability Requirements Facilitated by the IoT

The challenges and opportunities linked with IoT have been intensively discussed in recent years. The connectivity of things over their entire life cycle and the smart properties associated with it provide new functionalities and unprecedented availability of (usage) data. This offers huge opportunities for manufacturers, service providers, users, and also policymakers. The latter may impact policy areas such as the regulations on resource and materials efficiency under the Ecodesign Directive 2009/125/EC. With the general approach as it is practiced today, legal requirements are usually set for entire product groups without considering the products individually, including user behavior and environmental conditions. The increasing number of smart products and the growing availability of product data are sparking a discussion on whether these requirements could be more product and application-specific. This paper presents a method for calculating the economically and ecologically optimal durability of a product. It allows determining the point in time when a product should be replaced by combining consumer data with product design data. This novel approach could contribute to making product regulation more flexible and possibly more efficient. In this context, fundamental challenges associated with smart products in policymaking are also discussed.

The Utilization of Plum Stones for Pellet Production and Investigation of Post-Combustion Flue Gas Emissions

Agri-food waste is generated at various food cycle stages and is considered to be a valuable feedstock in energy systems and chemical syntheses. This research identifies the potential and suitability of a representative agri-food waste sample (i.e., plum stones) as a solid fuel. Ground plum stones containing 10, 15, and 20 wt.% of rye bran were subjected to pelletization. The pelletizer was operated at 170, 220, and 270 rpm, and its power demand for the mixture containing 20 wt.% of rye bran was 1.81, 1.89, and 2.21 kW, respectively. Such pellets had the highest quality in terms of their density (814.6 kg·m−3), kinetic durability (87.8%), lower heating value (20.04 MJ·kg−1), and elemental composition (C: 54.1 wt.%; H: 6.4 wt.%; N: 0.73 wt.%; S: 0.103 wt.%; Cl: 0.002 wt.%; O: 38.2 wt.%). Whole plum stones and pellets were subjected to combustion in a 25 kW retort grate boiler in order to determine the changes in the concentrations of NO, SO2, CO, CO2, HCl, and O2 in the post-combustion flue gas. Collected results indicate that plum stone–rye bran pellets can serve as effective substitutes for wood pellets in prosumer installations, meeting the Ecodesign Directive requirements for CO and NO.

Faktoren nachhaltigen Stromkonsums in Europa und seine Förderung durch politisch-rechtliche Instrumente

This work examines electricity consumption in European households. It is the first to systematically examine the effects of specific instruments designed to influence electricity consumption on the goals of sustainable development from the perspective of sustainable economics. This interdisciplinary work first examines the main drivers of household electricity consumption on the basis of empirical macro data. In its second part, the author develops an evaluation system for political and legal instruments based on a comprehensive Delphi survey, which also includes the effects of such instruments on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Using this assessment approach, the author analyses the strengths and weaknesses of the EU’s Ecodesign Directive, energy taxes and consumer advice. The results of the work can thus provide an important starting point for the further development of the instruments, while the evaluation system developed in the second part can be used to evaluate other instruments.

LCA and Ecodesign Framework and Applications in the Electronics Sector

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is an indispensable tool in estimating the environmental impact of products and services. Generating estimates according to international standards is a crucial precondition towards optimizing the environmental performance of products and services. In Europe, the Ecodesign Directive (2009/125/EC) provides a method on how to determine impacts associated with energy-using and energy-related products, including electric and electronic equipment (EEE). One the one hand, efforts are being made to further harmonize LCA methods to allow for comparative assertions between different products and to eventually integrate LCA results into further parts of the European environmental legislation. On the other hand, LCA studies of electronics components, products, and product-service-systems can be very complex, reflecting the global supply chains, advanced production methods, and fast technological developments in the field of EEE. This paper provides and overview of both the LCA and Ecodesign framework, current developments in the field, and illustrates the intricacies of LCA studies in the field of EEE with a focus on consumer ICT and IT devices.

Impact of chimney on low emission

The air pollution caused by operation of heating devices using solid fuels is a significant problem in Poland and neighbour countries. The pollution level is so high, that some voivodships impose anti-smog acts, banning the use of heating devices which do not meet requirements of the 5th class according to EN 303-5. By 2023 the ban is going to be imposed nationwide. In order to improve the air quality, heating devices' producers take constant measures to improve their products. It is recently expected that those devices meet the strict 5th class emission requirements, as well as other directives' requirements, including the Ecodesign Directive 2009/125/EC. However, the emission results achieved during initial test of heating devices in laboratory may be much worse during operation in real operating conditions. The research included tests proving that the chimney system applied to a heating device might influence the emission of particles exhausted with the smoke. The tests have been performed in real-life conditions, on a test rig that was prepared for this purpose. The research has proved that emission values of heating devices will change, chimney system applied.