Study of a Fire-Resistant Plate Containing Fly Ashes Generated from Municipal Waste Incinerator: Fire and Mechanical Characteristics and Environmental Life Cycle Assessment.

The recycling of fly ash from municipal solid waste incineration is currently a global issue. This work intends to examine the viability of a novel recycling alternative for fly ashes as a component of fire-resistant plates. To lessen the quantity of heavy metal leaching, the fly ash was utilized after being washed using a water/fly ash ratio of 2 for one hour.

The effect of the European Industrial Emissions Directive on the air emission limit values set by competent authorities in the permitting procedure: The case of the Spanish cement industry.

The concept of the "flexibility principle" introduced by the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control Directive in the procedure to determine the emission limit values in the permit raised the interest of several scholars and heightened the debate on environmental regulation. The Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control Directive allows a considerable flexibility to competent authorities in the permitting process to deviate from the use of best available techniques described in the reference documents. Several studies show how this flexibility lead to disparities in the permitting process among Member States, which reduced the potential benefits in the environmental performance of companies.

Mesophilic Semi-Continuous Anaerobic Digestion of Strawberry Extrudate Pretreated with Steam Explosion.

The production of strawberry concentrate produces a side stream after extrusion that is commonly landfilled. This strawberry extrudate (SE), of lignocellulosic character, contains valuable bioactive compounds such as sugars and phenols. Thermal treatments, such as steam explosion, are currently used for the valorisation of agricultural lignocellulosic wastes due to their ability to impact the structure of the lignocellulose and hemicellulose present in these wastes, favouring the disruption of fibrous material.

Sustainable management of spent fluid catalytic cracking catalyst from a circular economy approach.

For sustainable growth, an economic model must tend toward a circular system, especially in the field of waste management. This work focuses on the valorization of spent fluid catalytic cracking catalyst from oil refineries, which generate 400,000 metric tons of spent catalyst per year worldwide, most of which is sent to landfills. A new alternative to landfilling is proposed for this waste, based on the combination of acid leaching for the recovery of lanthanum, a valuable rare earth, and the reuse of the leached solid residue as a cement substitute.

Behavior of trace elements and micronutrients in manure digestate during ozone treatment.

Digestate treatment techniques have recently been proposed as a strategy to increase the ultimate biogas yield from dairy manure and to improve the digestate quality as an organic fertilizer. These studies however rarely take the trace elements (TE) and nutrient partitioning into account. This study focusses on ozone treatment (5-40 g O kg Total Solids (TS)) as a digestate treatment technique to control the concentration of TE and nutrients in the liquid phase of the digestate.

Electrochemical tap water softening: A zero chemical input approach.

Electrochemical water softening was proposed as a sustainable alternative for ion exchange softening, avoiding the input of salt to drinking water and the production of a concentrated brine. Here we demonstrated two novel modes of operation combining an electrochemical cell with a fluidized bed crystallizer. The first approach relied on an electrochemical cell consisting of an anode and cathode separated by a cation or anion exchange membrane.

Performance evaluation of mesophilic semi-continuous anaerobic digestion of high-temperature thermally pre-treated olive mill solid waste.

The aim of the present work was to evaluate the effects of a thermal pre-treatment of olive mill solid waste (OMSW) and phenol extraction process on the semi-continuous anaerobic digestion of this pre-treated waste during a prolonged operational period (275 days) in order to assess the organic loading rates (OLR) of 1 ad 2 g Volatile Solids (VS)/(L·d). The anaerobic digestion of thermally pre-treated and de-phenolized OMSW was stable at an OLR of 1 g VS/(L·d), which permitted a specific production rate of 172 ± 60 mL CH/(g VS·d). However, the system was not able to operate at an OLR of 2 g VS/(L·d), which resulted in the total failure of the process.

Synthetic Slag Production Method Based on a Solid Waste Mix Vitrification for the Manufacturing of Slag-Cement.

Herein an innovative process to develop a potential vitreous material with cementing properties is proposed. This process paves a production path through melting industrial waste and subsequently cooling the casting in water. The idea erases the need to reduce the environmental impact of the cement industry in terms of natural resources consumption as well as the re-utilization of abandoned wastes from other industries.

Valuable Compound Extraction, Anaerobic Digestion, and Composting: A Leading Biorefinery Approach for Agricultural Wastes.

In a society where the environmental conscience is gaining attention, it is necessary to evaluate the potential valorization options for agricultural biomass to create a change in the perception of the waste agricultural biomass from waste to resource. In that sense, the biorefinery approach has been proposed as the roadway to increase profit of the agricultural sector and, at the same time, ensure environmental sustainability. The biorefinery approach integrates biomass conversion processes to produce fuels, power, and chemicals from biomass.

Challenges of scaling-up PHA production from waste streams. A review.

The search for new materials that replace fossil fuel-based plastics has been focused on biopolymers with similar physicochemical properties to fossil fuel-based plastics, such as Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA). The present paper reviews the challenges of scaling-up PHA production from waste streams during the period from 2014 to 2016, focusing on the feasibility of the alternatives and the most promising alternatives to its scaling-up. The reviewed research studies mainly focus on reducing costs or obtaining more valuable polymers.

Phenols recovery after steam explosion of Olive Mill Solid Waste and its influence on a subsequent biomethanization process.

A promising source of high added value compounds is the Olive Mill Solid Waste (OMSW). The aim of this research was to evaluate the viability of a biorefinery approach to valorize OMSW through the combination of steam explosion, phenols extraction, and anaerobic digestion. Steam explosion treatment increased the total phenol content in the steam exploited OMSW, which was twice than that the total phenol content in raw OMSW, although some undesirable compounds were also formed.