Circular economy performance and carbon footprint of wind turbine blade waste management alternatives.

It is estimated that 570 Mt of blade waste, whose management is complex and expensive, will be generated by 2030 in the European Union alone. Accordingly, alternative blade waste management techniques are being investigated to optimize material recovery. This study evaluates the correlation between the circular economy performance and the carbon footprint of seven end-of-life management solutions for wind turbine blades: repurposing, grinding, solvolysis, pyrolysis, co-processing in cement kilns, incineration with energy recovery and landfilling.

On the Relationship between Exposure to Particles and Dustiness during Handling of Powders in Industrial Settings.

Exposure to ceramic powders, which is frequent during handling operations, is known to cause adverse health effects. Finding proxy parameters to quantify exposure is useful for efficient and timely exposure assessments. Worker exposure during handling of five materials [a silica sand (SI1), three quartzes (Q1, Q2, and Q3), and a kaolin (K1)] with different particle shape (prismatic and platy) and sizes (3.

Sustainability assessment of home-made solar cookers for use in developed countries.

The sustainability benefits of using solar cookers in developing countries have been analysed widely in the literature. However, the sustainability potential of solar cookers in developed economies has not been explored yet, which is the topic of this paper. Three types of solar cooker - box, panel and parabolic - were built as part of this research, using mostly (>70%) reused household materials.

Improving the environmental sustainability of reusable food containers in Europe.

Modern lifestyles have popularised the use of food containers, also known as food savers or Tupperware. However, their environmental impacts are currently unknown. To fill this knowledge gap, this paper presents the first comprehensive assessment of the life cycle environmental sustainability of reusable plastic and glass food savers and evaluates different options for improvements, focusing on European conditions.

Life cycle environmental evaluation of kettles: Recommendations for the development of eco-design regulations in the European Union.

Between 117 and 200 million kettles are used in the European Union (EU) every year. However, the full environmental impacts of kettles remain largely unknown. This paper presents a comprehensive life cycle assessment of conventional plastic and metallic kettles in comparison with eco-kettles.

Environmental assessment of microwaves and the effect of European energy efficiency and waste management legislation.

More than 130 million microwaves are affected by European Union (EU) legislation which is aimed at reducing the consumption of electricity in the standby mode ('Standby Regulation') and at more sustainable management of end-of-life electrical and electronic waste ('WEEE Directive'). While legislation focuses on these two life cycle stages, there is little information on the environmental impacts of the entire life cycle of microwaves. To address this gap, this paper presents a comprehensive life cycle assessment of microwaves and assesses the environmental implications of the Standby Regulation and the WEEE Directive at the EU level.

Life cycle environmental impacts of vacuum cleaners and the effects of European regulation.

Energy efficiency of vacuum cleaners has been declining over the past decades while at the same time their number in Europe has been increasing. The European Commission has recently adopted an eco-design regulation to improve the environmental performance of vacuum cleaners. In addition to the existing directive on waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), the regulation could potentially have significant effects on the environmental performance of vacuum cleaners.

Hantzsch dihydropyridines: Privileged structures for the formation of well-defined gold nanostars.

Anisotropic and branched gold nanoparticles have great potential in optical, chemical and biomedical applications. However their syntheses involve multi-step protocols and the use of cytotoxic agents. Here, we report a novel one-step method for the preparation of gold nanostructures using only Hantzsch 1,4-dihydropyridines as mild reducing agents.

Assessment of misorientation in metallic and semiconducting nanowires using precession electron diffraction.

Precession electron diffraction (PED) allows for diffraction pattern collection under quasi-kinematical conditions. The combination of PED with fast electron diffraction acquisition and pattern matching software techniques is used for the high magnification ultra-fast mapping of variable crystal orientations and phases, similarly to what is achieved with the Electron Backscattered Diffraction technique in Scanning Electron Microscopes at lower magnifications and longer acquisition times. Here we report, for the first time, the application of this PED-based orientation mapping technique to both metallic and semiconducting nanowires.