Research

Identification and selection of building façade’s smart materials according to sustainable development goals

Buildings consume vast amounts of energy and pollute the environment in various ways. Façade is a part of building’s architecture that can play a significant role in reducing energy consumption, as well as alleviating its negative environmental effects. Although using smart materials in buildings’ facades can help dramatically to attain the mentioned goals, very limited studies have been conducted regarding the mentioned issues. Moreover, existing studies have investigated only a few number of smart materials simultaneously. Therefore, this research aims to conduct a wider study, identify and prioritize the most suitable building façade’s smart materials according to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for Shiraz, Iran.

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Thermoelectric generators: Linking material properties and systems engineering for waste heat recovery applications

Waste-heat recovery with thermoelectric power generators can improve energy efficiency and provide distributed electricity generation. New thermoelectric materials and material performance improvements motivate development of thermoelectric generators for numerous applications with excess exhaust and process heat. However, thermoelectric generator product development requires solving coupled challenges in materials development and systems engineering. This review discusses these challenges and indicates ways system-level performance relies on more factors than traditional thermoelectric material performance metrics alone.

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Materials and membrane technologies for water and energy sustainability

Water and energy have always been crucial for the world’s social and economic growth. Their supply and use must be sustainable. This review discusses opportunities for membrane technologies in water and energy sustainability by analyzing their potential applications and current status; providing emerging technologies and scrutinizing research and development challenges for membrane materials in this field.

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Acoustic and thermal characterization of a novel sustainable material incorporating recycled microplastic waste

Worldwide, high plastic consumption leads to huge waste production. Macro and microplastic litter affects habitats everywhere, but especially marine environments. Unfortunately, plastic is particularly difficult to retrieve from the sea, since it tends to break up into smaller pieces due to wind, water movement and solar irradiation. Hence, its end-of-life handling and management has become a major issue. Most of the time recovered plastic waste is landfilled or burnt, since it is composed of an assortment of different polymers and/or has been polluted by salt or other marine substances.

For these reasons, new recycling methods for marine litter, pursuing cleaner production criteria, are urgently required. This article presents a brand-new sustainable material, an eco-friendly foam made of waste microplastics incorporated into a bio-matrix.

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Circular use of plastics-transformation of existing petrochemical clusters into thermochemical recycling plants with 100% plastics recovery

Plastics represent a serious waste-handling problem, with only 10% of the plastic waste (PW) generated world-wide being recycled. The remainder follows a linear economy model, involving disposal or incineration. Thermochemical recycling provides an opportunity to close the material cycle, and this work shows how this can be achieved using the existing petrochemical infrastructure. The transformation of a generic petrochemical cluster based on virgin fossil feedstocks into a cluster that is based on PW has the following proposed sequence: (1) the feedstock is partially replaced (45% on carbon basis) by PW; (2) the feedstock is totally replaced by PW; (3) the process undergoes electrification; and (4) oxy-combustion and carbon capture and storage are introduced to achieve 100% carbon recovery in the form of monomers or permanent storage. An alternative transformation pathway that includes the introduction of biomass is also considered.

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Sustainability and dynamics of outcrop-to-outcrop hydrothermal circulation

Most seafloor hydrothermal circulation occurs far from the magmatic influence of mid-ocean ridges, driving large flows of water, heat and solutes through volcanic rock outcrops on ridge flanks. Here we create three-dimensional simulations of ridge–flank hydrothermal circulation, flowing between and through seamounts, to determine what controls hydrogeological sustainability, flow rate and preferred flow direction in these systems. We find that sustaining flow between outcrops that penetrate less-permeable sediment depends on a contrast in transmittance (the product of outcrop permeability and the area of outcrop exposure) between recharging and discharging sites, with discharge favoured through less-transmissive outcrops. Many simulations include local discharge through outcrops at the recharge end of an outcrop-to-outcrop system. Both of these characteristics are observed in the field. In addition, smaller discharging outcrops sustain higher flow rates than larger outcrops, which may help to explain how so much lithospheric heat is extracted globally by this process.

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