Publications related to Environmental impact of electricity generation

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

Filiform Variable Stiffness Technologies for Medical Robotics

Yegor Piskarev

In recent years, soft robotics has surged in applications like wearables, drones, smart fabrics, and medical instruments. Due to their compliance, these devices excel in tasks demanding dexterity and adaptability, such as manipulation, locomotion, crash re ...

EPFL2024

Design and Synthesis of Bio-based Amphiphiles from Lignocellulosic Biomass

Songlan Sun

In the pursuit of a carbon-neutral chemical industry, minimizing fossil feedstock consumption while integrating renewable carbon sources is imperative. Surfactants, inherently amphiphilic, pose challenges in separation and recovery processes. Given their e ...

EPFL2024

Photovoltaics at multi-terawatt scale: Waiting is not an option

Sophia Haussener, Stefaan De Wolf

A major renewable-energy milestone occurred in 2022: Photovoltaics (PV) exceeded a global installed capacity of 1 TWdc. But despite considerable growth and cost reduction over time, PV is still a small part of global electricity generation (4 to 5% for 202 ...

American Association for the Advancement of Science2023

Frequency Regulation with Storage: On Losses and Profits

Daniel Kuhn, François Richard Vuille, Dirk Lauinger

Low-carbon societies will need to store vast amounts of electricity to balance intermittent generation from wind and solar energy, for example, through frequency regulation. Here, we derive an analytical solution to the decision-making problem of storage o ...

2024

Leveraging industrial biorefineries for the energy transition

François Maréchal, Julia Granacher

Biorefineries hold the potential to provide products and energy carriers at reduced environmental impact compared to their fossil-based counterparts. Thus, they can contribute to the decarbonization of sectors in which electrification of demands is challen ...

Elsevier Sci Ltd2023

The thermodynamic and life-cycle assessments of a novel charging station for electric vehicles in dynamic and steady-state conditions

Jan Van Herle, Hossein Pourrahmani, Chengzhang Xu

The current study performs the thermodynamic and life-cycle assessments (LCA) of a novel charging station in two system designs. The goal is to design an efficient charging station for electric vehicles with high efficiencies and low environmental impacts ...

Nature Portfolio2023

Integrated production of urea and nitric acid in the pulp industry: techno-economic and environmental analysis of black liquor gasification-based processes

François Maréchal, Daniel Alexander Florez Orrego, Shivom Sharma, Meire Ellen Gorete Ribeiro Domingos

The pursuit of alternative energy sources for the nitrogen fertilizers sector has recently earned renewed interest due to increasing concerns regarding the world dependence on non-renewable energy resources and also motivated by the more stringent environm ...

2022

Decision support for the design of integrated biorefineries

Julia Granacher

A shift from fossil-based energy and products to more sustainable alternatives is essential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and associated climate change impacts. Biomass represents a promising alternative for providing fuels and carbon-based products w ...

EPFL2023

Heat pumping and renewable energy integration for decarbonizing brewery industry and district heating

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

The energy integration of brewery plants and urban agglomerations has many benefits in terms of rational energy use and reduced environmental impact, especially during scenarios of uncertain supply chain and volatile market prices. In fact, the diversifica ...

Elsevier2023

2022 roadmap on low temperature electrochemical CO2 reduction

Sophia Haussener, Raffaella Buonsanti, Etienne Boutin, Ludmilla Steier, Xiaoyan Wang, Ming Ma, Xuan Liu

Electrochemical CO2 reduction (CO2R) is an attractive option for storing renewable electricity and for the sustainable production of valuable chemicals and fuels. In this roadmap, we review recent progress in fundamental understanding, catalyst development ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2022

PMT: Power Measurement Toolkit

Emma Elizabeth Tolley, Stefano Corda

Efficient use of energy is essential for today's supercomputing systems, as energy cost is generally a major component of their operational cost. Research into "green computing" is needed to reduce the environmental impact of running these systems. As such ...

IEEE COMPUTER SOC2022

Flexibilisation of Biogas-Based Power-to-Gas Processes: A Techno-Economic and Experimental Assessment

Andreas Gantenbein

Biogas-based power-to-X technology allows storing renewable electricity, while producing CO2-neutral products. This work investigates the conversion and upgrading of digestion-derived gas mixtures with focus on increasing the operational flexibility of the ...

EPFL2022

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

Solid-state synthesis of CdFe2O4 binary catalyst for potential application in renewable hydrogen fuel generation

Michael Graetzel, Shaik Mohammed Zakeeruddin

Clean energy is highly needed at this time when the energy requirements are rapidly increasing. The observed increasing energy requirement are largely due to continued industrialization and global population explosion. The current means of energy source is ...

Nature Portfolio2022

Synergistic optimization of renewable energy installations through evolution strategy

Michael Lehning, Jérôme François Sylvain Dujardin, Annelen Kahl

With large parts of the world moving toward renewable energies, there is an urgent need to organize this large-scale transition effectively. This paper presents a new methodology to guide the planning and siting of renewable electricity generation for coun ...

2021

Bayesian Methods for the Identification of Distribution Networks

Giancarlo Ferrari Trecate, Jean-Sébastien Hubert Brouillon, Pulkit Nahata

The increasing integration of intermittent renewable generation, especially at the distribution level, necessitates advanced planning and optimisation methodologies contingent on the knowledge of the admittance matrix, capturing the topology and line param ...

IEEE2021

Potential of Photovoltaic Panels on Building Envelopes for Decentralized District Energy Systems

François Maréchal, Luc Girardin, Luise Middelhauve, Francesco Baldi

The expected increase of the penetration of distributed renewable energy technologies into the electricity grid is expected to lead to major challenges. As a main stakeholder, authorities often lack the appropriate tools to frame and encourage the transiti ...

2021

Grid-Aware Layout of Photovoltaic Panels in Sustainable Building Energy Systems

François Maréchal, Paul Michael Stadler, Luise Middelhauve, Francesco Baldi

In the context of increasing concern for anthropogenic CO2 emissions, the residential building sector still represents a major contributor to energy demand. The integration of renewable energy sources, and particularly of photovoltaic (PV) panels, is becom ...

2021

Metal-organic framework derived copper catalysts for CO2 to ethylene conversion

Jun Li, Ning Wang, Yun Liu

The electrochemical reduction of CO2 to ethylene provides a carbon-neutral avenue for the conversion of CO2 to value-added fuels and feedstocks, so contributing to the storage of intermittent renewable electricity. The exploration of efficient electrocatal ...

Royal Society of Chemistry2020