Search results for "Production"

A comprehensive multi-scale model for bipolar membrane electrodialysis (BMED)

2022

Bipolar membrane electrodialysis (BMED) is a technology combining solute and solvent dissociation to produce chemicals. In the recent decades, it has been typically studied for the production of valuable acid and base solutions from salt streams. Although many works have been devoted to the experimental investigation of BMED, only a few efforts have focused on its mathematical modelling. In the present work, a comprehensive process model based on a multi-scale approach with distributed parameters is presented for the first time. Five models related to four different dimensional scales were fully integrated to form a comprehensive tool. The integrated model was developed by using the process…

Seawater Desalination for Freshwater Production

2009

In the last decades more and more countries have experienced water scarcity problems, thus pointing at alternative non-conventional sources of fresh water. Seawater desalination has proven to be a reliable and economically sustainable water resource since the second half of the 20th Century. A number of well proven technologies already exist, with advantages and disadvantages making each of them more suitable in specific sites. Moreover, quite recently, coupling the use of renewable energy to the production of fresh water from seawater results in novel technologies, able to minimise the environmental impact that desalination processes can create due to their intense energy consumptions.

Modelling Reverse Electrodialysis process via Exergy Analysis

2017

Salinity Gradient Power Heat Engines (SGP-HEs) represent a novel technology to convert low grade waste heat into electricity. Reverse Electrodialysis Heat Engine (REDHE) is one of the possible application of this concept, where a common RED unit is coupled with a thermal regeneration unit supplied with waste heat to restore the salinity gradient of the streams to be fed back to the RED unit. In a RED unit, anion and cation exchange membranes (AEMs and CEMs) are alternatively stacked and interposed between salt solutions at different concentration generating an electric potential difference over each membrane along with a selective transport of cations and anions from the concentrated soluti…

A Blockchain-based Platform for Positive Energy Districts

2022

The reduction of climate change effects (mitigation) is now mainly driven by the limitation of CO2 emissions which is currently becoming increasingly necessary and urgent to achieve. In this context, within the past Horizon 2020 program, the Urban Europe Joint Programming Initiative aimed to promote the development and deployment of at least 100 Positive Energy Districts by 2025. The latter are flexible, energy-efficient urban areas or groups of buildings that produce zero net CO2 emissions and actively manage annual renewable energy surplus production at the local or regional level. As they are connected to the electric power system, Positive Energy Districts have the ability to offer flex…

INTEGRATING ONTOLOGY AND COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS FOR NATURAL LANGUAGE PRODUCTION AND UNDERSTANDING A CASE OF STUDY IN FLUID CONSTRUCTION GRAMMAR.

2012

Inferring Business Rules from Natural Language Expressions

2014

This paper proposes a mapping technique for automatically translating rules expressed in a format based on natural language, i.e. Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Business Rules (SBVR) standard, into production rules that can be executed by a computer (i.e. Rule engine). The proposed approach achieves a twofold purpose: on the one hand non IT skilled people (i.e. Domain expert) can effectively focus on business rules definition by using statements in natural language, and on the other hand the IT staff will have to manage business rules in a format ready to be executed by a rule engine. The main goal is to overcome some weaknesses in the software development process that could produce i…

A Reinforcement Learning Approach for User Preference-aware Energy Sharing Systems

2021

Energy Sharing Systems (ESS) are envisioned to be the future of power systems. In these systems, consumers equipped with renewable energy generation capabilities are able to participate in an energy market to sell their energy. This paper proposes an ESS that, differently from previous works, takes into account the consumers’ preference, engagement, and bounded rationality. The problem of maximizing the energy exchange while considering such user modeling is formulated and shown to be NP-Hard. To learn the user behavior, two heuristics are proposed: 1) a Reinforcement Learning-based algorithm, which provides a bounded regret and 2) a more computationally efficient heuristic, named BPT- ${K}…

Green calims, green washing and consumer protection in European Union

2021

The purpose of this paper is to offer some reflection on the importance of reliable green claims to encourage sustainable production. The role of market is fundamental. Businesses and consumers are both involved in achieving environmental protection objectives. There is the real risk of the phenomenon of so-called green washing or misleading marketing. The problem arises of verifying the reliability of green claims to prevent competitive elements from become distorting factors of competition.

Riflessioni a margine dell’ordinanza cautelare del 26 novembre 2021 del Tribunale di Gorizia: greenwashing tra concorrenza sleale e diritto del consu…

2022

La pubblicizzazione sul mercato di prodotti ecofriendly non di rado si è rivelata frutto di pratiche scorrette di c.d. greenwashing, ciò consistendo in ipotesi di concorrenza sleale capaci di alterare i sistemi competitivi del libero mercato e ledere il diritto dei consumatori all’acquisto consapevole. Simili atti sono oggi sanzionati ricorrendo ad inibitorie e a comunicazioni pubbliche in cui l’impresa infedele informa i propri consumatori circa l’ingannevolezza dei comportamenti posti in essere. In tale ambito, che in primo luogo interessa il settore agroalimentare, si inserisce l’ordinanza cautelare del 26 novembre 2021 del Tribunale di Gorizia. Il ricorso a disciplinari di produzione ba…

L’exemplum del Dinomenide Gelone tra memoria civica e storiografica

2015

La storia della Sicilia greca è scandita, nei suoi momenti chiave, dalla persistente presenza dell’immagine del Dinomenide Gelone. Questo lavoro analizza le valenze paradigmatiche assunte dalla sua figura nella memoria civica siracusana e nella produzione storiografica; inoltre ricostruisce le dinamiche politiche che hanno spinto i principali tiranni siracusani (da Dionisio I a Ierone II) a stabilire un confronto con Gelone. Il suo exemplum è utilizzato per legittimare azioni politiche e impegno antipunico; particolare attenzione è posta alla Biblioteca storica di Diodoro Siculo e al ruolo che in essa assume la figura del Dinomenide; in relazione a questi aspetti l’opera dell’Agirinense sem…