0000000001304742
AUTHOR
Guercio A.
Estimation of the energy producibility of an offshore wave energy converter
Climate change and environmental degradation are an existential threat to Europe and the world. Each year that passes the atmosphere warms up and the climate changes with possible catastrophic consequences for all living species. It is therefore necessary to implement a decisive change of course in terms of energy and environmental strategies at a global level, gradually abandoning the use of fossil sources in favor of renewable ones. A lot of country participates to European or global energy treaties or pacts to reduce step by step their fossil energy consumption and greenhouse gas. Among all renewable energies, the engineering department of the University of Palermo focuses the exploitati…
Life Cycle Assessment applied to a new system for sea wave energy harvesting
A new technology for wave energy harvesting is currently under development at the University of Palermo. The target is the exploitation of sea waves in the Mediterranean Sea, and small islands. The paper suggests an innovative technology for the wave energy harvesting in onshore areas. Indeed, the machine can be installed on existing infrastructures, like breakwaters of harbours. A small-scale prototype was already tested in laboratory. In this paper, a Life Cycle Assessment is performed to evaluate the environmental impacts of this technology, considering the potential energy production as functional unit.
Supplementary Material for: Silk-based matrices and c-Kit positive cardiac progenitor cells for a cellularized silk fibroin scaffold: study of an in vivo model
The production of a cellularized silk fibroin scaffold is very difficult because it is actually impossible to differentiate cells into a well-organized cardiac tissue. Without vascularization, not only do cell masses fail to grow, but they may also exhibit an area of necrosis, indicating a lack of oxygen and nutrients. In the present study, we used the so-called tyrosine protein kinase kit (c-kit)-positive cardiac progenitor cells (CPCs) to generate cardiac cellularized silk fibroin scaffolds, multipotent cells isolated from the adult heart to date that can show some degree of differentiation toward the cardiac phenotype. To test their ability to differentiate into the cardiac phenotype in …