Publications related to Environmental effects of mining

Multiscale pattern analysis of building replacements in Zurich from 2000 to 2019

Corentin Jean Dominique Fivet, Jingxian Ye

Building replacement (BR) – i.e., the demolition of existing structures and subsequent construction of new buildings on the same site – is often understood as a necessary urban planning strategy despite significant environmental implications regarding soli ...

2023

Integration of Life Cycle Impact Assessment in Energy System Modelling

François Maréchal, Jonas Schnidrig, Manuele Domenico Margni, Justine Brun

The Paris agreement is the first-ever universally accepted and legally binding agreement on global climate change. It is a bridge between today’s and climate-neutrality policies and strategies before the end of the century. However, government and private ...

2023

A customized MOF-polymer composite for rapid gold extraction from water matrices

Wendy Lee Queen, Daniel Teav Sun, Shuliang Yang, Jun Li, Li Peng, Olga Syzgantseva

With the fast-growing accumulation of electronic waste and rising demand for rare metals, it is compelling to develop technologies that can promotionally recover targeted metals, like gold, from waste, a process referred to as urban mining. Thus, there is ...

AMER ASSOC ADVANCEMENT SCIENCE2023

An innovative autonomous robotic system for on-site detection of heavy metal pollution plumes in surface water

Bhawna Nagar, Alexander Haider, Qiuyue Yang

Smart monitoring has been studied and developed in recent years to create faster, cheaper, and more user-friendly on-site methods. The present study describes an innovative technology for investigative monitoring of heavy metal pollution (Cu and Pb) in sur ...

SPRINGER2022

Monitoring and understanding Cu catalyst dissolution during CO2 electroreduction

Jan Vávra

Electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide is a promising approach to decrease the amount of anthropogenic CO2 being released into the atmosphere, provided that a surplus of renewable electrical energy is available. Copper based materials are at the cente ...

EPFL2022

Extraction of Rare Earth Metals: The New Thermodynamic Considerations Toward Process Hydrometallurgy

Christian Ludwig, Rudolf Paul Wilhelm Jozef Struis, Andrea Testino, Ajay Bhagwan Patil

Successful management of secondary waste resources is essential for the viable circular economy. E-waste could serve as the potential urban mining source for the alternative supply chain of critical metals such as rare earth elements (REEs). The hydrometal ...

Springer Nature Switzerland AG2021

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

In Vitro Digestion of Tire Particles in a Fish Model (Oncorhynchus mykiss): Solubilization Kinetics of Heavy Metals and Effects of Food Coingestion

Kristin Schirmer, Florian Frédéric Vincent Breider, Benoît Jean Dominique Ferrari, Thibault Béranger Masset

Tire and road wear particles (TRWP) have been shown to represent a large part of anthropogenic particles released into the environment. Nevertheless, the potential ecological risk of TRWP in the different environmental compartments and their potential toxi ...

2021

Component reuse in structural design: emerging practices and tools for the circular economy

Corentin Jean Dominique Fivet, Jonas Warmuth, Pierluigi D'Acunto, Jan Friedrich Georg Brütting

Structural engineers play an increasing role in ensuring the transition towards a more sustainable construction sector: a) they are responsible for the design of the most resource- and energy-intensive part of buildings and infrastructure, and b) they regu ...

fib2021

Environmental impact minimization of reticular structures made of reused and new elements through Life Cycle Assessment and Mixed-Integer Linear Programming

Corentin Jean Dominique Fivet, Gennaro Senatore, Jan Friedrich Georg Brütting, Niels De Temmerman

An important share of building environmental impacts is embodied in load-bearing structures because of their large material mass and energy-intensive fabrication process. To reduce substantially material consumption and waste caused by the construction ind ...

2020

Transport of zinc ions in the hyporheic zone: Experiments and simulations

David Andrew Barry

Large amounts of toxic metals are discharged into rivers and lakes, but little is known about the factors that drive the adsorption and transformation of these metals in the hyporheic zone and the exchange flux across the sediment-water interface. To bette ...

2020

Optimum design of low environmental impact structures through component reuse

Jan Friedrich Georg Brütting

Load-bearing systems (structures) in buildings and infrastructure contribute to a significant share of adverse environmental impacts (EI) because of resource- and energy-intensive fabrication. A currently overlooked circular economy strategy to reduce EI i ...

EPFL2020

Conversion of vine shoots into bioethanol and chemicals: Prospective LCA of biorefinery concept

Edgard Gnansounou, Elia Mercedes Ruiz Pachon, Prasad Vithalrao Mandade

Vine shoots are the viticulture residues generated in high quantities after the grapevine pruning. They are lignocellulosic material poorly exploited as feedstock. These wastes are often dumped in the agriculture fields or burnt. Due to their availability ...

Elsevier2020

Hydrological and hydraulic solutions for the sustainability of habitat life in human altered streams

Amin Niayifar

In this thesis, I aim to contribute to the research towards improving the sustainability of habitat life in streams affected by anthropogenic activities. With the growing trend of altering natural water regimes due to hydropower operations, irrigation, and ...

EPFL2019

Long-term performance and life cycle assessment of energy piles in three different climatic conditions

Lyesse Laloui, Alessio Ferrari, Melis Sütman, Gianluca Speranza

The main purpose behind the use of energy piles is to enable the exploitation of geothermal energy for meeting the heating/cooling demands of buildings in an efficient and environment-friendly manner. However, the long-term performance of energy piles in d ...

Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd2020

A Microfluidic Biodisplay

Sebastian Maerkl, Francesca Volpetti, Ekaterina Emilova Petrova

Synthetically engineered cells are powerful and potentially useful biosensors, but it remains problematic to deploy such systems due to practical difficulties and biosafety concerns. To overcome these hurdles, we developed a microfluidic device that serves ...

American Chemical Society2017

Microcity, an Innovative Building Integrating Sustainability Issues from Urban Design to Constructive Detail

Emmanuel Rey

The Microcity building, which houses the new branch of the EPFL in Neuchâtel (Switzerland), is the result of a synergy-generating strategy based on partnerships, experimentation with innovative processes and the continuous integration of sustainability-rel ...

2017

数字化图解静力学设计方法 — 建筑师和结构工程师共享的设计工具 (Digital Graphic Statics – Shared Design Tools for Architects and Engineers)

Corentin Jean Dominique Fivet

Aware of its heavy environmental impact, the construction industry is on the lookout for new tools that provide a closer control of the end performance of buildings, e.g. the energy and volume of materials that they demand and their ability to be repaired ...

2017

A novel testate amoebae trait-based approach to infer environmental disturbance in Sphagnum peatlands

Vincent Eric Jules Jassey, Mariusz Lamentowicz

Species' functional traits are closely related to ecosystem processes through evolutionary adaptation, and are thus directly connected to environmental changes. Species' traits are not commonly used in palaeoecology, even though they offer powerful advanta ...

Nature Research2016

Sustainability assessment of an urban neighborhood revitalization project in Bogotá by transposition of European indicator systems to the Colombian context

Sophie Lufkin, Emmanuel Rey

With 80% of its population living in cities, Latin America is one of the most urbanized regions in the planet. Its urban areas are characterized by rapid transformations that entail urban sprawl and the subsequent environmental impacts, social segregation ...

2015