Search results for "Circular Economy"
showing 10 items of 179 documents
A multifunctional plant for a sustainable reuse of marble waste toward circular economy
2021
The marble processing cycle involves the production of large quantities of wastes whose disposal represents an economic and environmental concern for marble companies due to the difficulty of identifying suitable landfills and the high transfer costs. In this context, the design of a sustainable industrial plant that allows the reuse of the calcium carbonate (CaCO3) contained in the marble waste is extremely challenging. With this recognition, the main industrial applications of CaCO3 are firstly analyzed in the present work to identify the physical–chemical properties required to CaCO3 in these contexts. Later, different plant solutions are suggested to recover CaCO3 from marble sludge in…
AnMBR, reclaimed water and fertigation: Two case studies in Italy and Spain to assess economic and technological feasibility and CO2 emissions within…
2020
[EN] The use of anaerobic membrane bioreactor (AnMBR) technology on urban wastewater can help to alleviate droughts, by reusing the water and nutrients embedded in the effluent in agriculture (fertigation) in line with Circular Economy principles. The combination of AnMBR and fertigation reduces CO2 emissions due to the organic matter valorization and the partial avoidance of mineral fertilizer requirements. However, both AnMBR and fertigation still face technological and regulatory barriers that need to be overcome. These bottlenecks were tackled within the first Innovation Deal approved by the European Commission in 2016, and gave rise to several case studies on water reuse systems. The r…
Simultaneous Separation of Antioxidants and Carbohydrates From Food Wastes Using Aqueous Biphasic Systems Formed by Cholinium-Derived Ionic Liquids
2019
project CICECO-Aveiro Institute of Materials, UID/CTM/50011/2019. Associate Laboratory for Green Chemistry-LAQV, FCT Ref. UID/QUI/50006/2019. POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016403. Investigator FCT project IF/00621/2015. Programa Mais Centro under project CENTRO-07-ST24-FEDER-002008. COMPETE: PEst-C/SAU/UI0709/2011. The food industry produces significant amounts of waste, many of them rich in valuable compounds that could be recovered and reused in the framework of circular economy. The development of sustainable and cost-effective technologies to recover these value added compounds will contribute to a significant decrease of the environmental footprint and economic burden of this industry sector. Acc…
GIS-data related route optimization, hierarchical clustering, location optimization, and kernel density methods are useful for promoting distributed …
2019
Currently, geographic information system (GIS) models are popular for studying location-allocation-related questions concerning bioenergy plants. The aim of this study was to develop a model to investigate optimal locations for two different types of bioenergy plants, for farm and centralized biogas plants, and for wood terminals in rural areas based on minimizing transportation distances. The optimal locations of biogas plants were determined using location optimization tools in R software, and the optimal locations of wood terminals were determined using kernel density tools in ArcGIS. The present case study showed that the utilized GIS tools are useful for bioenergy-related decision-maki…
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…
Environmental Sustainability Approaches and Positive Energy Districts: A Literature Review
2021
During the last decade, increasing attention has been paid to the emerging concept of Positive Energy Districts (PED) with the aim of pushing the transition to clean energy, but further research efforts are needed to identify design approaches optimized from the point of view of sustainable development. In this context, this literature review is placed, with a specific focus on environmental sustainability within innovative and eco-sustainable districts. The findings show that some sustainability aspects such as sustainable food, urban heat islands mitigation and co-impacts, e.g., green gentrification, are not adequately assessed, while fragmented thinking limits the potential of circularit…
Turning waste into gold: Sustainable feed made of discards from the food industries promotes gonad development and colouration in the commercial sea …
2021
Abstract Development of sustainable aquaculture practices is a suitable solution to reduce the pressure on overexploited stocks of the Mediterranean sea urchin, Paracentrotus lividus, and to respond to the increasing market demand. To move forward the Blue Growth and following the principles of circular economy, a three-month feeding experiment was conducted to test a sustainable feed based on food processing discards on sea urchins. Two feed formulations differing on the proportions of the two main ingredients (endive outermost leaves and European anchovy discards in a ratio of 60:40 and 80:20 respectively) were prepared and tested on P. lividus gonad yield, development and quality. The re…
Revalorization of Almond By-Products for the Design of Novel Functional Foods: An Updated Review
2021
The search for waste minimization and the valorization of by-products are key to good management and improved sustainability in the food industry. The great production of almonds, based on their high nutritional value as food, especially almond kernels, generates tons of waste yearly. The remaining parts (skin, shell, hulls, etc.) are still little explored, even though they have been used as fuel by burning or as livestock feed. The interest in these by-products has been increasing, as they possess beneficial properties, caused by the presence of different bioactive compounds, and can be used as promising sources of new ingredients for the food, cosmetic and pharmaceutical industry. Additio…
Design, construction and operational results of a pilot plant for the treatment and valorization of pickling waste solutions
2021
An innovative hybrid technology for both minimizing the waste production and optimizing the pickling process through the continuous control of pickling baths composition has been proposed by means of a pilot-plant installed at the Tecnozinco Srl, Carini (PA) hot-dip galvanizing plant. The recovery process has been accomplished by coupling a diffusion dialysis (DD), where HCl is recovered, a membrane distillation (MD), where HCl is concentrated, and a reactive precipitation (RP), where metal ions are recovered as iron hydroxide and ammonium/zinc chloride solution, to be used in the fluxing baths of the plant. The pilot plant was commissioned and operated using synthetic HCl solutions first a…
Circular Economy and Value Creation: Sustainable Finance with a Real Options Approach
2021
This paper presents a methodological proposal that integrates the circular economy concept and financial valuation through real options analysis. The Value Hill model of a circular economy provides a representation of the course followed by the value of an asset. Specifically, after the primary use, the life of an asset may be extended by going through four phases: the 4R phases (Reuse, Refurbish, Remanufacture and Recycle). Financial valuation allows us to quantify value creation from firms’ asset circularity under uncertainty, modelled by binomial trees. Furthermore, the 4R phases are valued as real options by applying no-arbitrage opportunity arguments. The major contribution of this pap…