Publications related to Waste-to-energy

Renewable energy integration and waste heat valorization in aluminum remelting for co-producing kerosene and methanol

François Maréchal, Daniel Alexander Florez Orrego, Meire Ellen Gorete Ribeiro Domingos, Réginald Germanier

The aluminium sector relies on natural gas for the conversion of recycled scrap into new feedstock, which results in substantial atmospheric emissions. Hydric resources are also impacted, as they serve as heat sinks for the waste heat generated during the ...

Associazione Italiana Di Ingegneria Chimica2024

Biomass screening for syngas production by flash photopyrolysis

Hubert Girault, Mathieu Soutrenon, Wanderson Oliveira Da Silva

A few seconds flash photopyrolysis is used as efficient screening tool for the investigation of selected biomass in producing syngas, hydrogen and biochar. This innovative approach allowed rapid pyrolysis of the biomass, which was followed by a precise gas ...

Royal Soc Chemistry2024

Tandem catalysis enables chlorine-containing waste as chlorination reagents

Paul Joseph Dyson, Mingyang Liu, Xinbang Wu

Chlorinated compounds are ubiquitous. However, accumulation of chlorine-containing waste has a negative impact on human health and the environment due to the inapplicability of common disposal methods, such as landfill and incineration. Here we report a su ...

Nature Portfolio2024

RE:SLAB — a load bearing system for open-ended component reuse in building structures

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

The construction industry plays a major role in the high levels of greenhouse gas emissions, resource consumption, and waste generation observed nowadays. Key to the circular economy, structural component reuse arises as a promising solution to divert cons ...

2024

Development of Sustainable Carbohydrate-Based Solvents by Acetal Functionalisation of Biomass

Anastasiia Komarova

Organic solvents are ubiquitous in industrial and domestic applications from the production of pharmaceuticals to household consumer products. The negative impact of most traditional solvents, especially aprotic types, on the environment, health, and safet ...

EPFL2024

Decision support methodology for waste-to-value process integration

Rafael Amorim Leandro De Castro Amoedo

Waste treatment is a complex procedure that comprises multidimensional aspects. The challenges posed by the energy transition and international protocols emphasize the role of waste in its material and energy dimension. With an increasing population and li ...

EPFL2023

Renewable Energy Integration and Waste Heat Recovery for the Production of Sustainable Jet Fuel and Decarbonization of Industrial Heating Applications

François Maréchal, Daniel Alexander Florez Orrego, Meire Ellen Gorete Ribeiro Domingos, Réginald Germanier

The process synthesis and optimization methods used in this work include simulation of biomass gasification, hydrogen and synthetic natural gas production, and jet fuel production via a Fisher Tropsch unit. An energy integration approach, carried out by th ...

American Institute of Chemical Engineering2023

Printed degradable piezoelectric microsystems: From ink formulation to device fabrication and characterization

Morgan Mc Kay Monroe

As the world moves further and further into the semiconductor era, the amount of waste generated from electronics ("e-waste") is increasing rapidly and unsustainably. Of particular note, alternatives to lead-based piezoelectric materials must be establishe ...

EPFL2023

Advances in hydration and thermodynamics of cementitious systems

Karen Scrivener, Patrick Juilland, Aslam Kunhi Mohamed, Fabien Jacques Michel Georget, Thomas Matschei

Optimising the hydration of cementitious materials is crucial to leverage their full potential and avoid wasting resources, embodied energy and CO2. Understanding the fundamental mechanisms is key to reach these objectives. In this paper, we review progres ...

Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd2023

Small-scale turbopumps for waste heat recovery applications based on an organic Rankine cycle: a study from pre-design to experimental validation

Sajjad Zakeralhoseini

The organic Rankine cycle (ORC) system is among the technologies applied to exploit waste heat in vehicles. Since common organic fluids have lower latent heat than water, higher mass flow rates are required to convert the same waste heat, considerably incr ...

EPFL2023

DeepValve: Development and experimental testing of a Reinforcement Learning control framework for occupant-centric heating in offices

Dolaana Khovalyg, Amirreza Heidari

Space heating controls in offices usually follow static schedules detached from actual occupancy, which results in energy waste by unnecessarily heating vacant offices. The uniqueness of stochastic occupancy profile and thermal response time of each office ...

2023

On the role of system integration in plastic waste management

François Maréchal, Ivan Daniel Kantor, Julia Granacher

The management of plastic waste is a growing concern that can harm wildlife and ecosystems, and its end-of-life policies are key to mitigating plastic environmental impact. This work presents a decision-making methodology for the thermal and material valor ...

Elsevier2023

Nanoliter Liquid Packaging in a Bioresorbable Microsystem by Additive Manufacturing and its Application as a Controlled Drug Delivery Device

Jürgen Brugger, Arnaud Bertsch, Cristina Martin Olmos, Jongeon Park

Precise packaging of nanoliter amounts of liquid in a microsystem is important for many biomedical applications. However, existing liquid encapsulation technologies have limitations in terms of liquid waste, evaporation, trapped bubbles, and liquid degrada ...

2023

A systemic study for enhanced waste heat recovery and renewable energy integration towards decarbonizing the aluminium industry

François Maréchal, Daniel Alexander Florez Orrego, Réginald Germanier

The aluminium remelting industry relies on natural gas to transform recycled aluminium into aluminium feedstock, entailing significant atmospheric emissions. Hydric resources are also affected as they are used as sinks of waste heat from the casting proces ...

2023

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

Investigation of Biomass Hydrothermal Conversion Products by HRMS

Daniil Salionov

The dependency on fossil fuels and their impact on the environment is a matter of great concern for the future sustainability of modern society. The development of the "green" technologies which utilize renewable energy sources is now under investigation. ...

EPFL2023

Comparison of regression techniques for generating surrogate models to predict the thermodynamic behavior of biomass gasification systems

François Maréchal, Daniel Alexander Florez Orrego, Julia Granacher, Meire Ellen Gorete Ribeiro Domingos

Biomass resources can play an important role in the energy transition, being a dynamic feedstock that can be transformed either into solid, liquid or gaseous fuels. The biomass gasification is a versatile way to convert wastes into energy. In this work, th ...

Elsevier2023

Surfactant-based enrichment of rare earth elements from NdFeB magnet e-waste: Optimisation of cloud formation and rare earths extraction

Christian Ludwig, Rudolf Paul Wilhelm Jozef Struis, Ajay Bhagwan Patil, Mohamed Tarik

Appropriate waste and resource management are essential for a sustainable circular economy with reduced environmental impact. With critical resources, e-waste may serve as indirect raw material. For example, with NdFeB permanent magnets, Neodymium (Nd) and ...

2023

Selection and Optimal Use of Nanoporous Materials for Adsorption Energy Technologies

Emanuele Piccoli

Due to the large waste of heat in the power and industrial sectors, our use of energy is inefficient. Moreover, it relies on rapidly depleting and greenhouse-gas-emitting sources such as fossil fuels. While the scarcity of energy resources is a relevant so ...

EPFL2023

Lignin, from biomass waste to sustainable materials for food packaging, antiviral coatings and agriculture

Alice Boarino

Our planet has been challenged for years by our reckless use of fossil fuels, which has led to the ongoing climate change and energy crisis. The transition to the use of renewable alternative sources has now became urgent and inevitable. The valorization o ...

EPFL2023