Search results for "021108 energy"
showing 10 items of 80 documents
Mushrooms as Biomonitors of Heavy Metals Contamination in Forest Areas
2018
Abstract The aim of the research was to assess the level of contamination with heavy metals (manganese, iron, nickel, copper, zinc, cadmium and lead) in two forest areas selected in different places in Poland: the first one in the Swietokrzyskie Province (forests of the Staporkow Forest Division) and the second one in the Opolskie Province (forests of the Kup Forest Division). The degree of contamination of these forest areas with analytes was found using edible large-fruited mushrooms naturally occurring there - the research was carried out using passive biomonitoring method. Heavy metals in mushrooms (separately in stems and hats) as well as in soil samples were determined by atomic absor…
An optimal dimensioning method of a green wall structure for noise pollution reduction
2021
International audience; This paper concern the optimization of a multilayered green wall structure including substrate and foliage in order to reduce as much as possible backward noise reflection and forward transmission from the wall. Each component involved in the wall structure is fully characterized experimentally to get its transfer matrix. Simulation demonstrated that foliage layer superimposed to substrate layer doesn’t affect the transmission losses but contributes greatly to the increase of return losses of the green wall structure. To achieve the best performances in terms of return and forward losses as well as frequency bandwidth, the methods of optimization are discussed inclu…
Towards Nearly Zero Energy and Environmentally Sustainable Agritourisms: The Effectiveness of the Application of the European Ecolabel Brand
2020
Tourism represents an important economic driver in Italy, being responsible for approximately 13.2% of the total GDP (a value higher than the reference European average) and for nearly 10% of the regional GDP. Among the touristic sectors, the agritourist ones show a persistent growth, experiencing in 2019 a 6.7 point percentage improvement compared to the 2017 figures. Given this situation, the transition towards a low-carbon path, affecting the building sector for some time, should also involve agritourist buildings, through the release of EU directives, member state laws, and technical rules. On the other hand, agritourism sites could be awarded the Community EU Ecolabel. Unfortunately, a…
Investigation of design strategies and quantification of energy flexibility in buildings: A case-study in southern Italy
2021
Abstract The need for nearly (net) zero energy buildings in the current European landscape does not merely refer to energy balances: the aim to investigate the interaction between generation and load and find sources of technical-economic energy efficiency is marking the rise in interest throughout research and practice of energy flexibility solutions in buildings. In this regard, the study aims at enhancing the energy flexibility of a building in southern Italy through Rule-Based Control algorithms for the control of the space heating system and the charge and discharge of an electricity storage. The influence of electricity pricing and the thermal comfort conditions on flexibility is also…
Improving energy efficiency of commercial buildings by Combined Heat Cooling and Power plants
2020
Abstract Commercial buildings play a key-role in the energy consumption of the building sectors. Recent statistics have shown that as the number of commercial buildings is continuously increasing, their effects on energy consumption are expected to grow. These buildings are characterized by high energy demand mainly due to lighting and HVAC requirements. Rooms of energy saving exist by considering that: (i) electricity demands and HVAC requirements occur simultaneously during the day and (ii) both demands are currently satisfied by using separate energy systems. It is apparent that the adoption of polygeneration systems could represent a valid solution to achieve energy savings. To this aim…
Conceptualizing Core Aspects on Circular Economy in Cities
2021
Currently, there are many different interpretations in the literature of what a circular economy is and how it functions. As cities are still facing challenges to become fully sustainable, the need for a comprehensive analysis of how the circular economy can be implemented in urban areas is increasing. This article aims at outlining circular cities by their key characteristics and to further explore and provide a framework for fostering circularity at the city level. In order to achieve this goal, we performed a systematic review and analyzed key papers published in the field of circular economy to determine how circular economy practices form circular cities. We discovered that cities play…
Physical and mechanical properties of sustainable hydraulic mortar based on marble slurry with waste glass
2021
This paper aims to propose and characterize a sustainable hydraulic mortar entirely obtained by the reuse of waste materials, with marble slurry coming from quarries in the north-western Sicily and glass powder coming from a waste collection plant in Marsala (Province of Trapani). The first was used as raw material to produce the mortar binder by a kilning and slaking process, while the second was used as a pozzolanic additive. The chemical and morphological characterization of the marble slurry was done by XRD, FTIR, STA and SEM analyses. Glass powder was analyzed through particle size distribution measurements, XRD and standard pozzolanic tests. Hydraulic mortars constituted by slaked lim…
Space syntax analysis applied to urban street lighting: Relations between spatial properties and lighting levels
2019
According to the international technical standards, higher lighting levels (luminance and illuminance levels) are expected in trafficked and central roads (where restrictive minimum lighting requirements are necessary) and lower lighting levels are expected in peripheral and less trafficked roads. Starting from this assumption, in this paper, the authors analyse the correlations between spatial properties (expressed by spatial indicators, for example, the integration index and the choice index) and lighting levels (expressed by lighting parameters, for example luminance and illuminance) upon roads of an urban context. The analysis has been applied to the case study of the medium sized town …
Catastrophic risks and the pricing of catastrophe equity put options
2021
In this paper, after a review of the most common financial strategies and products that insurance companies use to hedge catastrophic risks, we study an option pricing model based on processes with jumps where the catastrophic event is captured by a compound Poisson process with negative jumps. Given the importance that catastrophe equity put options (CatEPuts) have in this context, we introduce a pricing approach that provides not only a theoretical contribution whose applicability remains confined to purely numerical examples and experiments, but which can be implemented starting from real data and applied to the evaluation of real CatEPuts. We propose a calibration framework based on his…
Mathematical modelling and experimental study of straw co-firing with gas
2019
The main goal of the present study is to promote a more effective use of agriculture residues (straw) as an alternative renewable fuel for cleaner energy production with reduced greenhouse gas emissions. With the aim to improve the main combustion characteristics at thermo-chemical conversion of wheat straw, complex experimental study and mathematical modelling of the processes developing when co-firing wheat straw pellets with a gaseous fuel were carried out. The effect of co-firing on the main gasification and combustion characteristics was studied experimentally by varying the propane supply and additional heat input into the pilot device, along with the estimation of the effect of co-firing on…