Publications related to Natural resource

Reuse of cut concrete slabs in new buildings for circular ultra-low-carbon floor designs

Corentin Jean Dominique Fivet, Numa Joy Bertola, Célia Marine Küpfer

The study explores an original idea that responds to the urgent need to reduce the detrimental environmental impacts of load-bearing floor construction in new buildings by reusing saw-cut reinforced concrete (RC) pieces salvaged from soon-to-be demolished ...

2024

Steel Pipes and Global Networks: The Influence of Dalmine S.p.A in Shaping Resource Extraction Infrastructures

Anna Karla De Almeida Milani

Pipelines for extracting oil, gas, water, and supporting energy systems are part of the infrastructure of extractive sites, especially marked in countries with less urbanized areas. Throughout the twentieth century, such regions were influenced by economic ...

2023

Circularity by stock in Sri Lanka: Economic necessity meets urban fabric renovation

Paolo Tombesi, Milinda Pathiraja

Persistent fiscal and political mismanagement, together with the financial pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic, have driven Sri Lanka into a social and economic crisis triggering a decrease in national foreign exchange reserves, an inability to purchase vit ...

FRONTIERS MEDIA SA2023

Experimental investigation on the bending response of reuse-ready timber slabs – The Pixel Slab System

Corentin Jean Dominique Fivet, Edisson Xavier Estrella Arcos, Johnny Syriani

Current construction practices follow linear economic models of "take-make-dispose" that result in substantial material landfilling after the end-of-life of buildings. This issue takes relevance given the construction industry's significant stake in the hi ...

International Association for Shell and Spatial Structures (IASS)2023

Interactions between beech and oak seedlings can modify the effects of hotter droughts and the onset of hydraulic failure

Charlotte Grossiord, Eugénie Isabelle Mas, Hervé Cochard, Janisse Deluigi, Margaux Clara Lou Didion-Gency, Fernando Valladares

center dot Mixing species with contrasting resource use strategies could reduce forest vulnerability to extreme events. Yet, how species diversity affects seedling hydraulic responses to heat and drought, including mortality risk, is largely unknown. Using ...

Wiley2023

Decarbonizing The Production of Primary Aluminium Using Renewable Resource

Aluminium is the second most widely used metal in the world, with a variety of applications ranging from transportation to food packaging and construction. While many aluminium producers target increased utilization of recycled aluminium to produce rolled ...

American Institute of Chemical Engineering2023

Resource aware pricing for electric vehicle charging

Nils Gustav Nilsson

Electric vehicle charging facilities offer their capacity constrained electric charge and parking to users for a fee. As electric vehicle adoption grows, so too does the potential for excessive resource utilization. In this paper, we study how prices set b ...

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD2023

A Reuse-Ready Timber Slab-and-Column System for Modular Building Structures

Corentin Jean Dominique Fivet, Jonas Warmuth, Jan Friedrich Georg Brütting, Alex-Manuel Muresan, Edisson Xavier Estrella Arcos

The construction industry is a significant contributor to resource consumption and waste generation. To address this issue, component reuse has been proposed as a way to prevent valuable building elements from being discarded and avoid producing new ones. ...

Curran Associates, Inc.2023

Taking a step back from glass towers facades to make them compatible with the 2050 targets

Sergi Aguacil Moreno, Bernard Paule

Skyscrapers or glass towers are an extremely common model throughout the world. In the current context of climate change and resource depletion, we need to develop new postures towards these objects, especially for existing buildings that are becoming obso ...

2023

Special Session: Challenges and Opportunities for Sustainable Multi-Scale Computing Systems

David Atienza Alonso, Miguel Peon Quiros

Multi-Scale computing systems aim at bringing the computing as close as possible to the data sources, to optimize both computation and networking. These systems are composed of at least three computing layers: the terminal layer, the edge layer, and the cl ...

ACM2023

Appropriate Communal Open Spaces: Principle 6

Yves Pedrazzini, Lesslie Astrid Herrera Quiroz

Principle 6 stresses that an appropriate proportion, number, organization and equitable distribution of Communal Open Spaces are essential for the sustainability of any settlement on the long-term, and should consider cultural, social and environmental asp ...

EPFL LASUR and GTH UNCHR2022

Techno-economic and environmental impact assessment of an olive tree pruning waste multiproduct biorefinery

Elia Mercedes Ruiz Pachon

This work focuses on the economic performance and environmental assessment of two biorefinery schemes using 100 t/day of olive tree pruning waste as feedstock. The first scheme is based on a multiproduct biorefinery producing 6363.64 m3/yr of ethanol, 999. ...

ELSEVIER2022

Towards sufficiency in housing: Agent-based model and transition scenarios

Margarita Agriantoni

Research problem: Housing is responsible for a considerable part of global resource consumption. In Switzerland, it accounts for almost one third of the country's CO2 emissions and half of the total energy demand. Thus, housing plays an important role in t ...

EPFL2022

Robust Resource-Aware Self-Triggered Model Predictive Control

Colin Neil Jones, Yuning Jiang, Yingzhao Lian

The wide adoption of wireless devices in the Internet of Things requires controllers that are able to operate with limited resources, such as battery life. Operating these devices robustly in an uncertain environment, while managing available resources, in ...

2022

The cis-lunar ecosystem — A systems model and scenarios of the resource industry and its impact

Jean-Paul Richard Kneib

Lunar resources is one of the many new putative business models that may transform space logistics. Yet it competes with Earth-based resources, in a complex trade-off involving both tech development & socioeconomic dynamics. This study models the size vs. ...

2021

Seeking methods for improving sustainability in the extractive sector

Farnaz Eslamishoar

Extractive resources are indisputably a necessary component of international sustainable development. Despite current advancements in the circular economy, world production needs for raw materials are ever increasing, and still a long way remains for it to ...

EPFL2021

Exergy and exergoeconomic analyses of sustainable furfural production via reactive distillation

François Maréchal

Lignocellulosic biomass is a potential renewable resource for production of high-value, sustainable products. Furfural is among the important bio-based chemicals in biorefineries. However, the conventional process of furfural production using a reaction-se ...

2021

Upcycling Space Structures (Preface to special issue)

Corentin Jean Dominique Fivet, Olivier Baverel

The construction industry’s contribution to the deterioration of Earth’s ecosystem is huge. 11% of all anthropic greenhouse gas emissions worldwide are due to the construction, demolition, and transformation of buildings and infrastructure. Construction an ...

2021

Persistence of bioconvection-induced mixed layers in a stratified lake

Alfred Johny Wüest, Damien Bouffard, Oscar Rodrigo Sepúlveda Steiner

In situ observations of biophysical interactions in natural waters typically focus on physical mechanisms influencing biological activity. Yet, biological activity can also drive physical processes in aquatic environments. A community of photoautotrophic, ...

American Society of Limnology and Oceanography2021

Predicting exposure concentrations of chemicals with a wide range of volatility and hydrophobicity in different multi-well plate set-ups

Kristin Schirmer, Julita Maria Stadnicka-Michalak

Quantification of chemical toxicity in small-scale bioassays is challenging owing to small volumes used and extensive analytical resource needs. Yet, relying on nominal concentrations for effect determination maybe erroneous because loss processes can sign ...

NATURE RESEARCH2021