Despite being composed of recyclable materials, the main technological challenge of multilayer carton packs involves the efficient decompatibilization of the cellulosic, polymeric, and metallic ...phases. Here, a simple two-step mechanochemical process is described that uses only aqueous media and mechanical force to promote phase separation in order to fully recycle multi-layer carton packaging. The first step produces value-added micro- and nanocellulose, while in the second step, aluminum is extracted, forming precipitated aluminum and aluminum oxyhydroxides. Solid polyethylene (PE) remains with a degree of purity defined by the process efficiency. The results show that cellulose is efficiently extracted and converted into micro- and nanocellulose after 15 min of milling. In the second stage, approximately 90% of the aluminum is extracted from the PE after 15 min of milling. Due to the separation and drying medium conditions, the finely divided particles of extracted aluminum also have oxyhydroxides in their composition. It is believed that a passivation layer forms on the metallic aluminum particle. The techno-economic analysis revealed a positive net present value (NPV) of $17.5 million, with a minimum selling price of 1.62 USD/kg of cellulose. The environmental analysis concluded that most of the environmental impact of the process is associated with the entry of carton packages into the system, incorporating a small environmental load related to the industrial process. The results indicate a promising option toward a circular economy and carbon neutrality.
Display omitted
•Mechanochemical route to the full recycling of multilayer carton packages.•Cellulose extraction and conversion into micro and nanocellulose.•Aluminum extracted from the polyethylene also present oxyhydroxide in the composition.•Polyethylene purity defined by the process efficiency.•Positive Net Present Value (NPV) of $17.5 million with minimal environmental impact.
•Large bending of creased paperboard studied experimentally in the range 0–180°.•Unloading path appears to be practically independent of the crease typology.•Qualitative mechanical behavior ...dramatically depends on crease indentation depth.•Moment loading response function with two peaks followed by unstable branches.•Unreliability of creased paperboard response requiring real-time controlled robot.
The large bending behavior of a creased paperboard is studied in the range of rotation θ∊0°,180° – new results, apparently not reported previously in literature – with the aim to point out some crucial aspect involved in an adaptive robotic manipulation of the industrial cartons.
The loading tests show a great variability of the mechanical behavior, depending dramatically on the crease indentation depth (also for the specimens obtained from the same carton): (a) when the damage induced during the crease formation is relatively small, the bending response is unusually complex: the moment constitutive function, mL(θ), presents (up to) two peaks followed by unstable branches; (b) for greater indentation, the mL(θ) is monotone.
In the unloading case the response mU(θ) is always monotone and is practically independent of the formation conditions of the crease. These behaviors can be easily described analytically using (piecewise) third degree splines.
In a companion paper, the erection of a typical carton corner with unstable constitutive behavior is fully analyzed to detect the possible criticalities.
•A survey was made by collecting samples of all types of apple cartons used in China.•The local and average airflow through stacks of horticultural products are analyzed.•Cooling efficiency of ...different carton designs analyzed by a novel integral approach.•A based provided for further optimization of carton designs.•A based provided for minimizing energy consumption during FAC.
The current packaging designs and the efficiency of forced-air cooling (FAC) of fresh produce can be considerably improved by comprehensively comparing and evaluating the existing packaging designs. This study presents a market survey that studies samples of typical apple cartons used in China. Furthermore, by combining experiment and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modelling, a novel integral approach is proposed to evaluate cooling rate and uniformity, energy efficiency, and fruit quality (including safety) as a result of FAC for different ventilated-packaging designs. The process uses CFD to simulate the three-dimensional spatio-temporal distributions of airflow and product temperatures during precooling. In addition, experiments on chilling injury and mass loss are also reported. The results show that the optimum fresh-fruit packaging design depends on the product size and the location of the product and tray inside the packaging. For all existing package designs, the optimal air-inflow velocity is found to lie in the range 0.4–1m/s (or 3–5Ls−1kg−1), any further increase in airflow rate simply wastes energy because it leads to a relatively low increase in cooling rate and uniformity. The level of chilling injury and mass loss per box show a different trend with increasing air-inflow velocity. The accuracy of the CFD simulations was confirmed by a good agreement with experiments. The maximum root-mean-square error and mean absolute percentage error for produce temperature are 0.727°C and 18.69%, respectively. This research unveils the advantages and disadvantages of the various existing packaging designs and provides a reliable theoretical and experimental basis for achieving an integral evaluation of the performance of FAC.
Evaporation ducts are a particular type of atmospheric stratification that frequently appears on the sea surface. The accurate and timely prediction of the evaporation duct height (EDH) is ...significant for the practical application of electromagnetic communication equipment. Due to the typical time-series (TS) characteristics of the measured evaporation duct data, we construct an EDH prediction model based on a long short-term memory network (LSTM-EDH model) for the first time. The experimental results show that the LSTM-EDH model's root-mean-square error (RMSE) is dramatically reduced and can achieve a better fit of the measured EDH compared with the Babin-Young-Carton (BYC), Naval-Postgraduate-School (NPS), and eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGB) EDH models. Compared with the XGB model, the generalization ability is also greatly improved.
Convective heat transfer coefficient across fruit surface at 1Lkg−1s−1 for each type of carton design
Display omitted
•A multi-parameter approach was applied to evaluate packaging ...performance.•Cooling performance was simulated using CFD models.•Carton strength was negatively related to vent hole area.•Multivent vent hole design used 58% less FAC energy than standard design.•Proposed new vent configurations offered better ventilation alignment.
Forced-air cooling (FAC) is used to rapidly remove the field heat of horticultural produce to better preserve quality. Cartons are ventilated to promote uniform cooling of the packed produce and to minimise energy used by precooler fans. The resulting cooling efficiency is influenced by the area and configuration of carton vent holes. However, placing vent holes also reduces the carton compression strength, which requires reinforcement using additional fibreboard, thereby increasing carton manufacturing costs. This study, therefore, applied a multi-parameter evaluation approach to assess four carton designs, each for three vent hole areas and three corrugated fibreboard grades. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) was used to evaluate airflow resistance, cooling rate, uniformity and package related energy consumption. Experiments were used to quantify box compression strength. Results of mechanical strength evaluation showed a negative linear relationship between carton strength and vent hole area. The effect of vent hole configuration on compression strength was dependent on the corrugated fibreboard grade. For cartons packed using trays, the Multivent vent hole design used 58% less FAC energy and also significantly improved cooling uniformity compared to the Standard vent design. The significant improvement in FAC energy efficiency, therefore, enables the Multivent to match or improve the compression strength and FAC energy efficiency of the Standard vent design, by using a considerably smaller ventilation area. This study thus demonstrates the importance of incorporating a multi-parameter approach in developing improved packaging with optimised vent hole designs.
In this study, we demonstrate the preparation of laser-cum KOH-activated porous carbon with tunable ionic states, unique surface chemistry, and physical texture from renewable and environmentally ...friendly precursors (waste cardboard boxes). The adsorption performance of the engineered adsorbents is examined on the adsorption of methyl blue (MB, anionic) and methylene blue (MeB, cationic). The adsorption mechanism was determined using detailed batch adsorption, and the MB was adsorbed via the formation of ternary complexes, whereas the MeB was adsorbed through cation-π interaction. Furthermore, the non-activated laser-induced carbon (LIC100) and the KOH-activated carbon (KAC(L)) exhibit superior dye adsorption capacities of 9610 (MB) and 1882 mg g−1 (MeB), respectively. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest ever reported at dye removal in the field of adsorptive dye removal. Langmuir isotherm model and pseudo-second-order are fitted well for both MB and MeB adsorption. Lastly, the carbons generated through this modern technique can be remodeled into a more secure device to obtain clean and microorganism-free water. This study showed the potential of laser-induced carbonization of KOH-activated substrate and provided unique insights into future development for universal dye adsorption and other possible applications.
Display omitted
•Successful synthesis of waste-derived carbon via laser-induced carbonization.•Utilization of cardboard waste for environmental remediation.•Salt bridge and cation-π adsorption mechanism.•Superior adsorption capacity of 9610 (MB) and 1882 mg g−1 (MeB), respectively.•Ultrafast dye removal performance of LIC100 and KAC(L).
The study of relationships between living beings is essential for understanding the functioning of the ecosystem for the management and conservation of biota, especially in rich and threatened biomes ...such as the Brazilian Cerrado. Therefore, this study aims to report the occupation of abandoned social wasp’s nests by termites in this biome. In this study, the occupation of two abandoned nests of Synoeca surinama (L.) by the termite Nasutitermes obscurus (Holmgren), recorded by chance, in April 2023 in a gallery forest with the same vegetation type of the Cerrado, located in the Grande Sertão Veredas National Park in southeastern Brazil. Both social wasp nests had their cells occupied by termites, which may have been used as a satellite nest for N. obscurus. This is the first record of a termite species occupying a social wasp’s nests; however, further studies are needed to better elucidate this relationship.
Currently, the world is facing a serious problem of waste disposal. The problem of waste disposal and inefficient recycling systems has turned researchers’ attention to biodegradable and recyclable ...materials. From this point of view, cellulose has been taken into consideration due to its biocompatibility, biodegradability and renewability. Food and garden packaging is very important for marketing scenarios. Proper packaging minimizes wear and tear, increases shelf life, and facilitates the transportation of materials from production to consumption. In this study, the types of packaging have been reviewed. The features and requirements of packaging, the types of materials used in food packaging were studied in terms of chemical nature and the types of packaging materials in terms of efficiency. The main purpose of this review article is to investigate the chemical and physical structure of cellulose as a biopolymer and the capabilities of using this polymer in the packaging of food/garden products. Cardboards and carton boxes made of cellulose are the most important products of this polymer that are used in packaging, and in this study, the characteristics of these packaging cartons have been investigated and reported in detail. Types of packaging cartons were classified in different models and types of packaging cartons in terms of size and shape. Active and intelligent packaging and innovative cardboard active packaging were reviewed and finally the promotion, recycling and reuse of paper packaging and previous research and future trends regarding paper packaging and cardboard boxes were reviewed.
The efficiency of truck loading-and-unloading tasks has become one of the major problems in logistics transportation, and intelligent loading-and-unloading robots are considered as effective ...solutions to this problem. Recently, carton detection with deep learning is widely used for those robots; however, lack of large annotated datasets is one of major impediments for rapidly deploying carton detection models. We currently have presented the Sacked Carton Dataset (SCD) that contains carton images from four logistics scenarios, such as Comprehensive Pharmaceutical Logistics Company (CPLC), E-commerce Logistics Company (ECLC), Fruit Market (FM), and Large Furniture Market (LFM). However, due to the domain shift, the carton detection model trained with source domain (which are annotated) has poor generalization ability when applied to the target domain (which are not annotated and from new logistics scenarios). To solve this problem, a novel image synthesis method is proposed to quickly acquire a labeled dataset, which replace the foreground texture of the source datasets with the texture of the target datasets. In this paper, a Local Surfaces Segmentation Algorithm is proposed to extract the carton stacking skeleton and an Invisible Contour Reconstruction Algorithm is proposed to complete the contour of the carton. Our method can keep the context relationship of foreground objects and backgrounds unchanged, and it also can greatly augment the target datasets. Code is available
here
.
Some carton products need more care and attention to their packaging, as product packaging aims to protect the product from any external conditions and even from tampering with the internal ...components of the product, which may lead to spoiling or tampering with it, as any tampering in the packaging may lead to changes in the content such as medicine, food and cosmetics packages And health care. Tamper-detection packages are shown through the research if there are any protective tapes or covers that have been broken.There are many anti-counterfeiting techniques available, ranging from simple to sophisticated and complex techniques that need tools to detect due to the spread of counterfeit products circulation in the Egyptian market. .Therefore, it was necessary to expose to some of these techniques that enable to verify the authenticity of the product and work to resist tampering and tampering in the folded carton packaging packages in order to protect the consumer. Through tamper-detecting insurance labels, the results indicated that: Using the tamper-resistant label correctly and compatible with the packaging leads to maintaining the aesthetic shape of the package and adding value, protecting the consumer from fraud and informing the consumer of any attempt to tamper with the package or its contents
