Suchergebnisse

Gas products from gasified solid recovered fuel (SRF) have been proposed as a replacement for natural gas to produce electricity in future power generation systems. In this work, the life cycle assessment (LCA) of SRF air gasification to energy was conducted using the Recipe2016 model considering five environmental impact categories and four scenarios in Qatar. The current situation of municipal solid waste (MSW) handling in Qatar is landfill with composting. The results show that using SRF gasification can reduce the environmental impact of MSW landfills and reliance on natural gas in electricity generation. Using SRF gasification on the selected five environmental impact categories—climate change, terrestrial acidification, marine ecotoxicity, water depletion and fossil resource depletion—returned significant reductions in environmental degradation. The LCA of the SRF gasification for the main four categories in the four scenarios gave varying results. The introduction of the SRF gasification reduced climate change-causing emissions by 41.3% because of production of renewable electricity. A reduction in water depletion and fossil resource depletion of 100 times were achieved. However, the use of solar technology and SRF gasification to generate electricity reduced the impact of climate change to almost zero emissions. Terrestrial acidification showed little to no change in all three scenarios investigated. This study was compared with the previous work from the literature and showed that on a nominal 10 kg MSW processing basis, 5 kg CO2 equivalent emissions were produced for the landfilling scenarios. While the previous studies reported that 8 kg CO2 produced per 10 kg MSW is processed for the same scenario. The findings indicate that introducing SRF gasification in solid waste management and electricity generation in Qatar has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emission load and related social, economic, political and environmental costs. In addition, the adoption of the SRF gasification in the country will contribute to Qatar's national vision 2030 by reducing landfills and produce sustainable energy.

The advancement of nations is measured on the significance it attaches to all different society members of various groups and abilities, and the availability of the capacities and services which provide everyone a successful social and economic life to fulfill their role in society. Societal exclusion is a common issue that captures the interest of governments and societies at this time. So some state governments attempt to integrate social groups of different physical, mobile, auditory and visual capacities into all fields without discrimination. One of the most important steps to prevent discrimination is providing the right for everyone to independently, easily, and optimally use the various facilities. Universal design aims at creating an environment everyone could use regardless of their age, size, disability or physical capacity. Therefore, the adoption of universal design as a design approach or upgrading old buildings is the best way to achieve social integration for all groups, as the application of universal design leads to create safe, accessible, and usable environments to all social groups. Statement of the problem The research issue lies in the fact that social exclusion of many groups of people results in a difficulty for dealing with the built environment and the various buildings such as the administrative buildings, that is because of the lack of inclusivity in these buildings as the concept of universal design has not been applied while designing these buildings. Whereas achieving inclusiveness and community integration requires ease of movement and use of buildings for everyone. Objectives of the research The research aims at raising awareness of the concept and principles of UD and the importance of its application. Moreover, the research endeavors to analyze and determine the problems impeding the application of the concept of universal design on the administrative buildings in Aswan, then the suggestions and solutions clarify how these buildings comply with inclusiveness, accessibility, and ease of use through the UD approach. To achieve these objectives, two administrative buildings in Aswan city have been assessed as a study case. Research methodology The study is based on more than one research method such as the descriptive-analytical approach and inductive approach throughout analyzing and identifying the shortcomings in the design of the administrative buildings under study in Aswan city, then assigning proposals to achieve inclusiveness in these buildings to accommodate all societal groups. Additionally, the practical method was used by preparing a checklist of the study in the light of the universal design of administrative buildings. The assessment of the selected buildings in Aswan city was according to their importance and notable role, besides the frequent visitors of these buildings and the daily regular visits to them. Furthermore, the researcher made some field visits to these buildings and documented this with photographs and researcher observations. The administrative buildings under study are: "The Administrative Building of Aswan city council", and "The Administrative Building of Aswan University". The study revolves around four elements of universal administrative buildings which are "Parking and Passenger Loading Zones, Obtaining product/ services, Using Public Amenities, Functional spaces", then calculate the percentage indicating the compatibility of each building with universal design approach and principles. Results and discussion The buildings of the study case have been assessed in the light of the concept and principles of universal design focusing on the most important architectural elements of the building which are "Parking and Passenger Loading Zones, Obtaining product/services, Using Public Amenities, Functional spaces". It turns out from the results of the prepared checklist of the study case that the first building "Aswan city council" got 50.7% complying with inclusiveness, while the second building "the administrative building of Aswan University" got 49.2 % complying with the principles and requirement of universal design. The following points clarify the results in more details at the main and secondary elements level of designing universal administrative buildings: · Parking and Passenger Loading Zones: the first building has no parking lot so it achieved a percentage up to 33.33% while the second building has a parking lot but it does not comply with universal design principles so it achieved a percentage up to 53.85 %. · Obtaining product/services: consists of (waiting zones, reception or information office, transaction equipment), the first building achieved a percentage up to 58.33 % complying with inclusivity while the second building achieved a percentage up to 45.83 % because of the well-designed waiting zones and reception in the first building. · Using Public Amenities: (including toilets and drinking water) equally complying with inclusiveness in the two buildings by a percentage up to 43.56%. · Functional spaces "office rooms": these are the most highly compliant elements with UD requirement by a percentage up to 60% in the first building, and 55.55% in the second one. The study revealed that the buildings under study do not apply the requirements of universal design sufficiently. As a result, many groups of users have been excluded from utilizing the services of these buildings. So, it is necessary to adjust many design elements of them to improve their usability for every group and assure societal integration, participation, and support social sustainability. Also, by studying and analyzing the previous results, a series of problems related to ease of use and accessibility in the buildings under study have been identified and addressed. The study illustrates what can be solved of those problems, and what could be avoided during the design process in the next designs. Conclusion The research concludes that the partial compliance of the buildings under study with UD requirement increases the opportunities of achieving full compliance after conducting some modifications by add or integrate some advanced technology systems of ease of use and upgrade accessibility for everyone to these buildings. The importance of the research arises in raising awareness of designers and architects to the necessity of paying more attention to the needs and requirement of all social groups by applying the requirement of UD and consider future changes while designing and constructing the administrative buildings which call for intensifying scientific researches on this field to find solutions that make it easier for designers to follow UD as a design approach under the current developments in the field of design.

Ajuts: Dimitrios Komilis is grateful to the TECNIOspring fellowship programme (TECSPR13-1-0006) which was co-financed by the European Union through the Marie Curie Actions and ACCIÓ (Generalitat de Catalunya) ; Innovative gas capture technologies with the objective to mitigate CO₂ and CH₄ emissions are discussed in this review. Emphasis is given on the use of nanoparticles (NP) as sorbents of CO₂ and CH₄, which are the two most important global warming gases. The existing NP sorption processes must overcome certain challenges before their implementation to the industrial scale. These are: i) the utilization of the concentrated gas stream generated by the capture and gas purification technologies, ii) the reduction of the effects of impurities on the operating system, iii) the scale up of the relevant materials, and iv) the retrofitting of technologies in existing facilities. Thus, an innovative design of adsorbents could possibly address those issues. Biogas purification and CH₄ storage would become a new motivation for the development of new sorbent materials, such as nanomaterials. This review discusses the current state of the art on the use of novel nanomaterials as adsorbents for CO₂ and CH₄. The review shows that materials based on porous supports that are modified with amine or metals are currently providing the most promising results. The Fe₃O₄-graphene and the MOF-117 based NPs show the greatest CO₂ sorption capacities, due to their high thermal stability and high porosity. Conclusively, one of the main challenges would be to decrease the cost of capture and to scale-up the technologies to minimize large-scale power plant CO₂ emissions.

Major advances in information and communication technologies (ICTs) make citizens to be considered as sensors in motion. Carrying their mobile devices, moving in their connected vehicles or actively participating in social networks, citizens provide a wealth of information that, after properly processing, can support numerous applications for the benefit of the community. In the context of smart communities, the INRISCO [1] proposal intends for (i) the early detection of abnormal situations in cities (i.e., incidents), (ii) the analysis of whether, according to their impact, those incidents are really adverse for the community; and (iii) the automatic actuation by dissemination of appropriate information to citizens and authorities. Thus, INRISCO will identify and report on incidents in traffic (jam, accident) or public infrastructure (e.g., works, street cut), the occurrence of specific events that affect other citizens' life (e.g., demonstrations, concerts), or environmental problems (e.g., pollution, bad weather). It is of particular interest to this proposal the identification of incidents with a social and economic impact, which affects the quality of life of citizens. ; This work was supported in part by the Spanish Government through the projects INRISCO under Grant TEC2014-54335-C4-1-R, Grant TEC2014-54335-C4-2-R, Grant TEC2014-54335-C4-3-R, and Grant TEC2014-54335-C4-4-R, in part by the MAGOS under Grant TEC2017-84197-C4-1-R, Grant TEC2017-84197-C4-2-R, and Grant TEC2017-84197-C4-3-R, in part by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), and in part by the Galician Regional Government under agreement for funding the Atlantic Research Center for Information and Communication Technologies (AtlantTIC).