This study upgrades the sustainability of environmental electrochemical technologies with a novel approach consisting of the in-situ cogeneration and use of two important oxidants, hydrogen peroxide ...(H2O2) and Caro's acid (H2SO5), manufactured with the same innovative cell. This reactor was equipped with a gas diffusion electrode (GDE) to generate cathodically H2O2, from oxygen reduction reaction, a boron doped diamond (BDD) electrode to obtain H2SO5, via anodic oxidation of dilute sulfuric acid, and a proton exchange membrane to separate the anodic and the cathodic compartment, preventing the scavenging effect of the interaction of oxidants. A special design of the inlet helps this cell to reach simultaneous efficiencies as high as 99% for H2O2 formation and 19.7% for Caro's acid formation, which means that the cogeneration reaches efficiencies over 100% in the uses of electric current to produce oxidants. The two oxidants' streams produced were used with different configurations for the degradation of three volatile organic compounds (benzene, toluene, and xylene) in a batch reactor equipped with a UVC-lamp. Among different alternatives studied, the combination H2SO5/H2O2 under UVC irradiation showed the best results in terms of degradation efficiency, demonstrating important synergisms as compared to the bare technologies.
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•Successful integration of the production of hydrogen peroxide and Caro's acid.•Efficiencies over 100% with process integration.•Different possibilities of applications of the electrogenerated oxidant's streams.•Successful VOCs degradation with the electrogenerated streams.•Combining electrogenerated products with UV reaches highest efficiency.
•An IoT Enabled Framework for Circular Supply Chain Integration.•IoT supply chain research agenda and implications for practitioners.•Guidance for aligning digital and sustainable ...strategies.•Influence of IoT capabilities on the integration of supply and demand processes.•Digital circular economy as a cornerstone of a sustainable supply chain.
Nowadays, the Internet of Things (IoT) has evolved beyond mere buzzword status, emerging as a pivotal force that can confer a competitive advantage in the market. By facilitating seamless communication between objects and the internet, IoT catalyzes unprecedented connectivity between machines and objects. An inherent advantage lies in its capacity to facilitate real-time information sharing, enabling efficient management of vital aspects within the realm of supply chain management, including inventory, products, and orders. Therefore, this study investigates the impact of IoT on supply chain performance, with a specific focus on the mediating role of interconnected systems in the dynamics of supply and demand, and the performance of supply chain firms within a sustainable circular economy context. A survey involving 268 manufacturers forms the basis of quantitative data analysis. Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) was employed to test the relationships between latent and construct factors. The results highlight the significant influence of IoT capabilities on both supply chain performance and the integration of internet-enabled supply and demand processes. Concurrently, the study reveals a reciprocal positive effect, as supply and demand integration within internet-enabled supply chains contributes to enhanced supply chain performance. Moreover, the integration of internet-enabled supply and demand processes emerges as a crucial mediator, amplifying the relationship between IoT capabilities and supply chain performance. This study provides valuable insights for managers, researchers, and policymakers, fostering a deeper understanding of the vital role that IoT plays in cultivating and enhancing superior supply chain management practices and overall performance. The study highlights the significant benefits of IoT in enhancing supply chain performance through improved real-time tracking, inventory management, and resource optimization. It also emphasizes the crucial role of integrating internet-enabled supply and demand processes as a mediator, boosting overall supply chain efficiency and responsiveness.
•Torrefaction improves biomass properties to a level comparable with coal.•Environmental and economic aspects of torrefaction are discussed.•Improving quality and cost competitiveness of torrefaction ...products is essential.
Torrefaction is one of the pretreatment processes used to overcome the disadvantages of using biomass as a fuel such as low energy density, high moisture, and oxygen contents. The torrefaction increases energy density, hydrophobicity, and reduces grinding energy requirement of biomass. This paper provides a review of the recent advancements in the torrefaction process. The discussion will cover the environmental and economic aspects of the torrefaction process and torrefied pellets, and various applications of torrefaction products. The cost competitiveness of torrefied pellets is one of the major concern of the torrefaction process. Integrating the torrefaction with other processes makes it economically more viable than as a standalone process.
In spite of tremendous efforts and huge investments on resources, biodiesel from oleaginous microalgae has not yet become a commercially viable and sustainable alternative to petro-diesel. This is ...mainly because of the technological and economic challenges hovering around large scale cultivation and downstream processing of algae, water and land usage, stabilized production technology, market forces and government policies on alternative energy and carbon credits. This review attempts to capture and analyse the global trends and developments in the areas of biofuel and bio-product of microalgae and proposes possible strategies that can be adopted to produce biofuel, biochar and bio-products utilizing wastewater in a bio-refinery model. The strategies include “Zero waste discharge” concept with process integration, wherein microalgae is grown strategically using different wastewater combined with flue gas in cultivation system for simultaneous production of ‘high-value-low-volume’ product and ‘low-value-high-volume’ product with sharing of the remnant biomass to produce biochar. In addition, the CO2 present in the atmosphere is captured and sequestered long term in the form of biochar would help to attain carbon negativity, while remediating wastewater and balancing energy requirements. Therefore, “Zero waste discharge” concept holds the potential to make the process a sustainable one, while gaining on the carbon credits.
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•Analysis of the trends and developments of biofuel and bio-product from microalgae•Microalgae provide an edge over lignocellulosic and solid waste based feedstock.•“Zero waste discharge” concept with process integration is presented.•Parallel synthesis of high value product and biochar as a co-product
Extreme events cause significant damage and disruption to the manufacturing sector, associated supply chains, and adjacent communities. These disastrous shocks may include natural disasters (e.g., ...hurricanes, floods, earthquakes), pandemics, catastrophic economic collapses (e.g., price crash of oil and gas), and terrorist and cyberattacks. Although much research has addressed the resilience of infrastructure, very little work has targeted the resilience of the manufacturing processes. Even less work has addressed the topic of process design approaches to create disaster-resilient industrial processes. The objective of this paper is to provide perspectives on the use of process integration for developing disaster-resilient designs of industrial plants with a focus on the process industries (e.g., chemical, petrochemical, oil, gas, specialty chemicals, pharmaceuticals, biorefining). Focus is given to three categories of extreme events: natural disasters, pandemics, and economic collapses. Although several principles have been proposed for resilience engineering of infrastructure, industrial processes have unique features that warrant a tailored discussion. To streamline the discussion, we have identified 12 principal strategies for creating disaster-resilient designs: (1) Fail-safe by design, (2) Redundancy, (3) Reconfigurability, (4) Modularity/Mobility/Distributability, (5) Repurposability, (6) Flexibility, (7) Controllability, (8) Reliability, (9) Recoverability/restorability, (10) Rapidity, (11) Robustness, and (12) Resourcefulness. These strategies are generally applicable to the process industries because they transcend the specific type of the manufacturing facility. Examples of industrial applications are given to explain the resilience strategies and discuss the research challenges and potential use of process integration in the systematic development of design concepts and tools for resilient design. The paper concludes with a list of future directions and promising research opportunities.
The need for clean and environmental friendly fuels is leading the world to the production of biofuels and replacing conventional fuels by them. Second generation biofuels derived from ...lignocellulosic feedstocks tackle the drawbacks posed by the so-called first generation ones regarding feedstock availability and competition with the food industries. Thermochemical conversion of biomass to biofuels is a promising alternative route relying on well-established technologies including gasification and the Fischer–Tropsch synthesis. The conjunction of these processes creates a pathway through which the production of biofuels is sustainable. However, the multiple interactions between the processing steps greatly increase the difficulty in the accurate design of such processes. Detailed process modelling and optimization studies combined with process integration methods are necessary to demonstrate an effective way for the exploitation of these interactions. The aim of this work is to present and analyze the thermochemical conversion of biomass to second generation liquid biofuels as well as to indicate the emerging challenges and opportunities of the application of process integration on such processes towards innovative and sustainable solutions concerning climate concerns and energy security.
High levels of impurities in acid mine drainage have many environmental effects. However, process integration can address the problem in a holistic and sustainable manner.
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•High ...levels of impurities in acid mine drainage have many environmental effects.•Acid mine drainage issues cannot be solved in short term or by single intervention.•Process integration can address the problem in a holistic and sustainable manner.•Products with economic value can be generated or recovered from acid mine drainage.
Acid mine drainage (AMD) or acid rock drainage (ARD) is considered as one of the main pollutants of water in many countries that have historic or current mining activities. Its generation, release, mobility, and attenuation involves complex processes governed by a combination of physical, chemical, and biological factors. In general, AMD is produced by the oxidative dissolution of sulphide minerals. This paper reviews the current state-of-the-art of AMD. It critically analyses the work performed in recent years on its occurrence, effects (on human health, plant life and aquatic species), and summarizes the remediation approaches taken so far to overcome the problem of AMD. The challenges faced in tackling the remediation of AMD have also been considered. Commercially developed projects that are either in operation, being piloted or under evaluation have also been discussed. Finally, the paper speculates on future directions or opportunities that deserve exploration.
In the operation of biorefineries, performing a quantitative, economic, and environmental assessment of process equipment design without the use of related software, is time-consuming, difficult, and ...sometimes impossible due to the complexity and high volume of calculations. The wrong choice of software in simulation and modeling can cause a lot of damages and lead to inaccurate results. Therefore, choosing an integrated system and specialized software can be the most important tool to achieve the planned goals. This study is aimed to investigate how and when to make the right software choice to enhance the performance and profits and diminish the risks, operating costs, and environmental impacts. The software used in the stages of cultivation, harvesting, conversion of microalgae, process optimization, and environmental impact assessment of biorefineries are introduced in various sections of this study, and the advantages and disadvantages of each of them are given along with some practical examples. The software tools investigated in this study include Aspen plus, SuperPro Designer, BioSTEAM, IPSEpro, WinGEMS, Unisim Design, Virtual Sugarcane Biorefinery (VSB) modeling software, Simapro, OpenLCA, and, etc., which can be used according to feed and process conditions and products. To our knowledge, we did not encounter any similar reviews or reports, and this review is the first of its kind on this topic.
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•Software tools for microalgae biorefineries were presented.•Biofuel production modeling and optimization was investigated.•How and when to choose the right software was developed.•Reduction of the risks, operating costs, and environmental impacts by software was introduced.
Massive industrialization all over the globe is the main cause for the generation of huge quantity of wastes such as flue gas and wastewaters. Mindless release of these hazardous wastes into the ...environment is threatening the health and survival of the mankind. Judicious use of these wastes for microalgal biomass cultivation is recognized as a plausible approach for the creation of a renewable and sustainable process chain for biofuel production. This study was designed to cultivate microalgae utilizing the organic and inorganic nutrients from the industrial wastewater (IWW) and coal-fired flue gas (FG) for simultaneous waste bio-remediation and biomass production for biorefinery application in closed photobioreactors. The two microalgae, Chlorella sp. and Chlorococcum sp. were cultivated in industrial wastewater where varying concentrations of coal-fired FG from 1 to 10% CO2, volume/volume percent (v/v) was supplied to stimulate the mixotrophic growth. Performance of the two microalgae was evaluated in terms of nutrient removal (ammonium, nitrate, phosphate and COD), CO2 fixation, total lipid and carbohydrate content obtained in the integrated mode of process development. The IWW with flue gas (5% CO2 (v/v)) resulted in maximum growth and CO2 fixation. The highest biomass growth (1.52 g L−1) and CO2 fixation (187.65 mg L−1 d−1) of Chlorella sp. with nutrient removal of >70% was observed by 5th day of batch cultivation. Nearly 90% removal of nitrogen resulted in nutrient limitation condition that steered the accumulation of lipid (17–34%) and carbohydrate (21.5–23.1%) in Chlorella and Chlorococcum sp. An overall 1.7 fold improvement in biomass was observed in this process integration compared with control culture. The present study presents a green process for waste remediation, CO2 fixation and production of biomass rich in lipid & carbohydrate content for the development of a green microalgal biorefinery.
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•Sustainable production of green algal biomass utilising waste industrial effluents.•Chlorella vulgaris was the identified effective microalgal species.•Effective nutrient removal of more than 75% was obtained by 5th day of batch process.•Improved lipid (17–34%) and carbohydrate (21.5–23%) content in microalgal sp. was observed under mixotrophic growth.•CO2 bio-fixation from coal-fired flue gas was highest at 5% CO2 concentration.
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•A novel liquid air energy storage system is proposed for recovering LNG cold energy.•Both direct and indirect power generation methods are applied to the proposed system.•LNG cold ...energy is recovered with 70.3% exergy efficiency.•Economic feasibility of the proposed system is investigated with net present value.
The cold recovery of liquefied natural gas (LNG) is an important issue and power generation is widely recognized as a potential option. However, the amount of generated power from LNG regasification is relatively small for use as a primary energy source to the energy grid. Therefore, using recovered LNG cold energy as an auxiliary energy source for the energy grid can be more appropriate than directly supplying power to the energy grid. By applying an energy storage system to the LNG regasification process, the recovered energy can be flexibly released to the energy grid when required. Among various energy storage technologies, liquid air energy storage (LAES) is one of the most promising large-scale energy storage systems. This study proposes a combined LAES and LNG regasification process. In this system, the air is cooled via heat exchange with LNG and compressed by using the generated power from LNG. This power is produced by both direct and indirect methods: LNG direct expansion and organic Rankine cycle with a mixed working fluid, respectively. This is a novel work in which both direct and indirect power generation methods to the LNG regasification process are combined with the energy storage system. According to the performance comparisons amongst various energy storage systems combined with the LNG regasification process, this proposed system is the most efficient proposed in the literature. Moreover, economic evaluation is performed using a net present value to investigate the feasibility of the proposed system.
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