Search results for "Energy engineering"
showing 10 items of 1099 documents
Tourism Activity of Member States and Romania's Place within the First Five Years after EU Accession
2013
Abstract This paper is a brief statistical analysis of the evolution of tourism in the EU-27 in the first five years after Romania's accession. The analysis was based on official data published by Eurostat regarding the tourist accommodation capacity by categories, the number of arrivals and overnight stays of tourists and non-residents. I highlighted each time Romania's place within Member States, preferring graphics that are more suggestive than synthetic data tables. In conclusions I have highlighted the changes occurred in Romania, far from those expected after five years as a member of the European Union.
Measuring Managers’ Perception of Innovation in the Romanian Hospitality Industry
2013
Abstract In the current economic environment, innovation is a common characteristic of both services and manufacturing enterprises. In the tourism sector innovation has become compulsory in the quest to achieve long term competitiveness. However, innovation is seldom assessed even after being integrated in the daily routine of tourism enterprises. The purpose of this article is to study the degree to which innovation is implemented in the Romanian hospitality industry by analyzing hotel managers’ perception on various types of innovations. The results offer an image on how innovative the hospitality industry is and on how innovation is fostered and achieved.
Social Media's Impact on Healthcare Services
2015
Abstract Taking into account the changes in recent years (the increased access to internet, the existence of affordable mobile devices and the ease of communication due to the growth of social media) it seems natural to investigate social media's impact on healthcare services. Furthermore, studies conducted worldwide show their benefits, both in terms of the patient, as well as the healthcare providers’. However, Romania's healthcare system faces serious problems on basic aspects. Thus, using secondary data, this paper aims to present the existing concerns about the impact of social media on healthcare services and to discuss to what extent they are applicable also in Romania.
Life Cycle Assessment of repurposed electric vehicle batteries: an adapted method based on modelling energy flows
2018
Abstract After their first use in electric vehicles (EVs), the residual capacity of traction batteries can make them valuable in other applications. Although reusing EV batteries remains an undeveloped market, second-use applications of EV batteries are in line with circular economy principles and the waste management hierarchy. Although substantial environmental benefits are expected from reusing traction batteries, further efforts are needed in data collection, modelling the life-cycle stages and calculating impact indicators to propose a harmonized and adapted life-cycle assessment (LCA) method. To properly assess the environmental benefits and drawbacks of using repurposed EV batteries …
Field testing of repurposed electric vehicle batteries for price-driven grid balancing
2019
Abstract As electric cars become more widespread, the disposal and recycling of used batteries will become an important challenge. Typically, vehicle batteries are replaced if their capacity drops to 70–80% of initial capacity. However, they may still be useful for stationary applications. In this paper, results from a field test of a molten salt high-temperature electric vehicle battery repurposed as stationary storage for grid balancing are presented. In a previous study, we have shown that a mixed integer linear programming control strategy driven by a spot-market price for electricity is best suited for an implementation on hardware with limited computational resources. A 14-day experim…
Queue Based Dynamic Charging Resource Allocation and Coordination for Heterogeneous Traffic in an Electrical Vehicle Charging Station
2021
Electric vehicle (EV) fast-charging stations (CSs) with innovative operation management strategies can help to meet the growing EV charging needs. Despite the short charging time associated with th...
Economic Robustness Analysis of Adaptive Chart Schemes for Monitoring the Total Nonconformities Number in Inspection Units
2015
In recent years, a variety of enhanced schemes for the c chart have been developed aimed at the effectiveness improving of the related statistical process control (SPC) procedures. However, the performance of such chart schemes can be very sensitive to values assumed for some operating and cost parameters, in particular to the considered process shift magnitude arising from out-of-control conditions. In such a circumstance, the effectiveness of such chart schemes can be subjected to substantial reductions when they are implemented in operative contexts given that, in practice, such value is unknown and it can be very difficult to accurately estimate. For this reason, in the present paper i…
Microbial Fuel Cell with Ni–Co Cathode Powered with Yeast Wastewater
2018
Wastewater originating from the yeast industry is characterized by high concentration of pollutants that need to be reduced before the sludge can be applied, for instance, for fertilization of croplands. As a result of the special requirements associated with the characteristics of this production, huge amounts of wastewater are generated. A microbial fuel cell (MFC) forms a device that can apply wastewater as a fuel. MFC is capable of performing two functions at the same time: wastewater treatment and electricity production. The function of MFC is the production of electricity during bacterial digestion (wastewater treatment). This paper analyzes the possibility of applying yeast wastewate…
Electricity Production from Yeast Wastewater in Membrane-Less Microbial Fuel Cell with Cu-Ag Cathode
2023
Wastewater has high potential as an energy source. Therefore, it is important to recover even the smallest part of this energy, e.g., in microbial fuel cells (MFCs). The obtained electricity production depends on the process rate of the electrodes. In MFC, the microorganisms are the catalyst, and the cathode is usually made of carbon material (e.g., with the addition of Pt). To increase the MFC efficiency (and reduce costs by reducing use of the noble metals), it is necessary to search the new cathode materials. In this work, the electricity production from yeast wastewater in membrane-less microbial fuel cells with Cu-Ag cathode was analyzed. In the first place, the measurements of the sta…
Initial approaches in benchmarking and round robin testing for proton exchange membrane water electrolyzers
2019
Abstract As ever-increasing amounts of renewable electricity enter the energy supply mix on a regional, national and international basis, greater emphasis is being placed on energy conversion and storage technologies to deal with the oscillations, excess and lack of electricity. Hydrogen generation via proton exchange membrane water electrolysis (PEMWE) is one technology that offers a pathway to store large amounts of electricity in the form of hydrogen. The challenges to widespread adoption of PEM water electrolyzers lie in their high capital and operating costs which both need to be reduced through R&D. An evaluation of reported PEMWE performance data in the literature reveals that there …