Integrated pollution prevention and control in the surface treatment industries in Galicia (NW Spain)

The so-called IPPC Directive concerning integrated pollution prevention and control came into force 10 years ago affecting those industrial installations enumerated in its annex I, mainly characterized for being highly polluting sources. One of the innovations of this regulation is that the installations must have an integrated environmental permit granted by the competent authority of the region in which they are located. This environmental permit should include, among others, the Emission Limit Values (ELV) for the more relevant and potential pollutants which cannot be overcome, taking into account the Best Available Techniques (BAT). In Spain this Directive was transposed by the Law 16/2002 on July 2002. This paper shows the application of this law to the surface treatment sector using electrolytic or chemical procedures, encompassed as epigraph 2.6 in its annex I, in Galicia (NW Spain). An overview of the sector is made by analyzing the productive operations applied and their environmental aspects to consider the options to prevent and/or reduce the potential pollution. To assist this task a simple method to determine whether a technique can be considered or not as BAT is offered. Finally, a support guide to apply for the environmental permit was exclusively elaborated for this sector.     

重点行业烟气脱硫脱硝除尘装备运行效果评价指标体系研究

当前日益严峻的大气污染物控制形势和节能减排相关产业政策要求的日趋严格,对重点行业开展烟气脱硫脱硝除尘装备运行效果评价工作提出了迫切需求。本文从分析当前我国火电和钢铁行业大气污染物排放及控制装备运行现状入手,论述了研制重点行业烟气脱硫脱硝除尘装备运行效果评价技术要求系列国家标准的必要性和紧迫性,阐述了相关评价标准的编制思路和原则;重点介绍了燃煤烟气脱硫脱硝装备和钢铁烧结烟气除尘装备运行效果评价指标体系的建立,以及定性评价要求和定量评价指标要求,借此推动我国重点行业大气污染物控制装备运行效果评价机制的建设,以标准化手段促进我国重点行业大气污染物控制装备运行可靠性和有效性的提升。     

Leather processing in Ethiopia and Kenya: lessons from India

This article discusses the successful value-added chain within India's leather industry, and then draws contrasts with the evolution of the leather products industries of Kenya and Ethiopia. Much of India's success derives from the ability of its stakeholders—from government to industry—to set their own policies and priorities regarding the development of the leather industry. The fact that India selectively liberalized the entry of a variety of industries into the global economy added to the improved performance of its leather products sub-sector. By contrast, both Ethiopia and Kenya followed different policies regarding liberalization, with differing results. Although the leather industry is important for both countries, moving up the value-added chain remains tenuous at best for Kenya and only slightly better for Ethiopia. This article recommends that both countries need to formulate and implement policies that will move the leather industry from raw and semi-processed production outward to the leather products and leather goods sub-sectors.     

Crack-resistant Fiber-bonded Ceramic

Low fracture resistance is one of the most serious limitations of ceramic materials. The new SiC fiber-bonded ceramic presented here was developed to address this problem. The thermally conductive material is a candidate for such demanding applications as gas turbine engine hot section components, where its high-temperature capability, high thermal conductivity, and low density make it very attractive for replacement of heavy metal super alloy components. Synthesized by hot-pressing the material with the commercial name Sintered Tyrannohex consists of hexagonal columnar SiC fibers with a thin interfacial carbon layer between them.     

Betrachtungen zum Löten in Gegenwart und Zukunft

Consideration on brazing and soldering today and in future In all parts of industries using metals, the application of brazing and soldering is increasing. The origin of those technologies is assumed 6.000 years ago, and for a long time, they were limited to a few industrial fields only. In recent years, they turned out to become a source of innovation. Today, they are essential in different industries as microelectronics, electrical engineering, automotive industry, aviation industry, turbine industry or tool industry. Starting with defining brazing and soldering, especially in comparison to competitive joining techniques, some selected developments of the last decades are presented, as brazing of Aluminium, High Temperature Brazing and brazing of ceramic materials. Finally, an outlook is given concerning ongoing and future developments.     

IGAA and XRF methods used in oil contamination research

The release of trace metals from oil industry in ecosystems represents a serious hazard for the Biosphere, because of their toxicity. The objective of the study is to identify the source and evaluate the effect of key contaminants and other toxic and non-toxic bioactive elements as well as to provide the basis for improved health for human population by the use of instrumental gamma-activation analysis in combination with the X-ray fluorescence technique.The analytical work consisted in measuring trace concentrations of specific oil industry pollutants in soil and river sediments from the region of oil refinery industry in Ploiesti city, Romania.A highly sensitive photon neutron activation method based on the (γ, n) reactions for determining the concentrations of trace heavy metals in the environmental samples is applied. Additionally, the replicate samples were investigated by the X-ray fluorescence analysis.Further the results were used to develop an approach based on the geostatistical modelling to update the estimates of heavy metal concentrations on the ground in order to quantify their extent in the region in relation with the emission sources.     

Application of AERMOD for short-term air quality prediction with forecasted meteorology using WRF model

Many methods are available for air quality forecasting based on statistical and back trajectory models which require past time series data. Future air quality prediction through models is the best tool to make rational decisions by policy maker. Limited work has been done on air quality forecasting using dispersion models which require better meteorological boundary conditions. The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) and American Meteorological Society/Environmental Policy Agency Regulatory Model (AERMOD) models have not yet been combined for air quality forecasting. Here, a case study has been carried out to forecast air quality using onsite meteorological data from WRF model and a dispersion model named AERMOD. Prior to the use of AERMOD, a comprehensive emission inventory has been prepared for all the sources in the study region Chembur of Mumbai city. Chembur has been notified as the “air pollution control region” by local authority due to high levels of air pollution caused by the presence of four major industries, six major roads in addition to a crematorium and a biomedical waste incineration facility. The WRF–AERMOD system was applied for prediction of concentration levels of pollutants SO₂, NO _x and PM₁₀. A reasonable agreement was obtained when predicted values were compared with observed data. Results of the study indicated that forecasting of air quality can be carried out using AERMOD with forecasted meteorological parameters derived from WRF without any requirement of past time series air quality data. Such kind of forecasting method can be used for air quality management of any region by policy makers.     

Glory and misery of biochar

Biochar refers to carbon-based dusty residues obtained from biomass pyrolysis. This recently rediscovered traditional soil improver is currently being glorified for its wide portfolio of favorable environmental aspects. With its lifetime of several centuries, it is being widely accepted as a promising method of carbon sequestration. Moreover, it has been demonstrated that biochar can reduce bioavailability of some heavy metals and that it has a high adsorption capacity to persistent organic pollutants. These effects are explained by a complex of physical, chemical and biological mechanisms. Besides agriculture, it has been currently used in food and chemical industries, as well as in the building industry. Many other promising applications are under investigation. However, contrary to many enthusiastic proclamations, no revolution in agriculture or environmental management is taking place. Despite significant achievements in reduction of biochar production costs, high demand from the industry and energy sector keeps the biochar price still high, which prevents a return of the ancient farming practice on a commercial scale.     

IPPC, BAT, and voluntary agreements

It is argued that the current discussion on Best Available Techniques (BAT) may not foster true sustainable production. Other instruments from the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) Directive, such as reporting, may be more effective in this respect. The Irish Integrated Pollution Control (IPC) system has operated for more than 5 years. Its emphasis is on prevention, environmental management systems (EMS), and reporting. Initial results are encouraging. In this paper, the system is used as a case study to illustrate the potential power of the Directive.EMS, if solely voluntary, may be less than effective. It is thus argued that the regulator can become involved in the process - so that EMS can be 'guided'.     

陶瓷食品接触材料釉层中铅和镉迁移研究进展

目的综述陶瓷食品接触材料中重金属的来源及危害,国内外标准法规,铅镉迁移的影响因素及机理研究进展等,为解决我国陶瓷食品接触材料中存在的安全问题、提高我国食品包装安全性的综合监督管理水平、推动我国包装产业和食品产业的稳定发展提供参考。方法运用列举、排比及归纳等方法对国内外的研究现状和研究成果进行分析总结。结果在铅、镉溶出量相关法规方面,目前我国与欧美发达国家相比还存在差距;陶瓷釉层中重金属初始含量、釉料成分比例、烧制温度,食品的pH值、酒精度以及贮藏时间、贮藏温度等都会对重金属的迁移起到很大影响;国内外对陶瓷中重金属迁移机理相关的研究较少。结论我国在陶瓷制品重金属检测方法和限量标准等方面虽与国际逐渐接轨,但仍存在差距,在陶瓷制品微观结构对迁移机理的影响方面还有较大的研究空间。     

Bayesian Belief Network Used in the Chemical and Process Industry: A Review and Application

With the increasing growth of the chemical and process industries, it is necessary to ensure the safe operation of their complex and often hazardous installations, given their proximity to residential areas. Several techniques, such as fault tree analysis (FTA), bow-tie analysis (BTA), and Bayesian belief networks (BBNs), have been developed for adequate probabilistic risk assessment and management. The current work is aimed at performing a brief statistical review of the use of Bayesian networks in the chemical and process industry within the last decade. The review reveals that Bayesian networks have been used extensively in various forms of safety and risk assessment. This trend is attributable to the complexity of the installations found in this industry and the ability of BBN to intuitively represent these complexities, handle uncertainties, and update event probabilities. The paper is concluded with an illustrative example of the use of BBN to investigate the effectiveness of the safety barriers of a gas facility.

     

燃煤电厂脱硫废水及污泥中重金属污染物控制研究进展

燃煤发电中常采用湿法烟气脱硫技术,该工艺会产生含有重金属污染物的脱硫废水和污泥,潜在环境危害性强,需谨慎处理。介绍了燃煤电厂脱硫废水和脱硫污泥的产生来源、成分组成、重金属污染物含量水平和排放处置标准,对沉淀法等脱硫废水重金属处理技术和脱硫污泥重金属去除及固化技术的原理、优点、适用性和局限性进行总结对比分析。脱硫废水重金属控制方法中,目前普遍使用的三联箱工艺难以满足日益严格的排放标准,需进行改进;吸附法、微生物法等新型方法也因成本和技术等问题而难以普及;零排放技术因其无污染的特性将逐渐成为研究和推广的主流。脱硫污泥重金属控制方法大多仍处于研究中,化学修复和药剂固化方法因效果好、适用性强将逐渐在电厂生产实践中推广。     

Aspen Plus-based simulation of a cement calciner and optimization analysis of air pollutants emission

The cement industry is a typical high energy consumption and heavy pollution industry, in which amounts of CO₂, NO, NO₂, and SO₂ discharge from the pre-calciner kiln system and cause severe greenhouse and acid rain effects. Meanwhile, reasonable division of the combustion environment in the calciner is the main method to control the formation of pollutant gases. In this article, a calciner process model in Aspen Plus is proposed based on the combustion mechanism analysis of the Dual Combustion and Denitration calciner (DD-calciner) and verified by industrial data. Then, for a concrete DD-calciner, the article studies the effects of the flow rate of coal and tertiary air on flue gas compositions and effects of the staging combustion technology on the NO _x , SO₂, and CO concentrations in the flue gas. Through comparing the model results with the relevant environmental standards, the optimization analysis for staging combustion parameters of the calciner is done, and the result shows that when the proportion of tertiary air entering the pyrolysis and combustion zone is controlled within the range of 57–65.52% (0.89 < α < 1.004), all the gas pollutants emit within accepted standards simultaneously. The calciner process model outlined in this article describes the key processes of the physical and chemical reactions in the calciner. It can be used to study the key operation and design parameters which influence the flue gas constituents, so as to provide data support for determining the pollutant emission reduction plan of the cement industries with a view to reduce air pollutant emission.     

Management and control of air emissions from electronic industries

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) including acetone, dichloromethane, ethanol, ethylene glycol, iso-propyl alcohol, and several other aromatic compounds are emitted during the manufacturing processes in electronic industries. These VOCs pose problems to human health and the environment. Stringent environmental legislations imposed by government agencies on VOCs force electronic industries to adopt effective air pollution-treatment methods. This article provides a detailed review of VOCs that are emitted from different processes in the electronic industry, conventional, and current technologies that are used to remove toxic air pollutants and an innovative application of biotechnology for removal of VOCs from electronic industry.     

Estimating the economic cost of emission reduction in Chinese vehicle industry based on multi-objective programing

By enforcing emission reduction policies, the economic effects on different industry are quite diverse. Scientific estimation for this kind of effect has important realistic meaning for the industry development. A multi-objective programing approach integrated with input–output analysis model is used in this paper to evaluate the impact of emission reduction policy on the cost of reducing gas emissions and undertaking industrial adjustment in Chinese vehicle industry. The empirical results show that gas emission control has positive influence on vehicle industry production value. But, this influence is lower than the average macro-economic cost of CO₂ emission in China. These policy implications on vehicle industry are less serious than other high emission industries and, at the same time, the enforcement of reduction policy is a chance for new energy vehicle development.     

A framework for decentralized multi-echelon inventory control

We provide a cost structure that can be used for decentralized control of a multi-echelon inventory system with a central warehouse and a number of retailers. This cost structure means that the warehouse, in addition to its local costs, pays a penalty cost for a delay at the warehouse to the retailer facing the delay. A basic assumption is that each installation starts with an initial policy concerning e.g., inventory control and transportation. The installations then play a Stackelberg game with the warehouse being [he leader. By minimizing its local costs according to the suggested cost structure, an installation can reduce its costs. The total system costs are then reduced by the same amount. No installation needs to face higher costs due to policy changes at other installations, since the cost structure satisfies a rationality constraint. If an installation applies its initial policy the local costs are the same as in the initial state, even if the other installations change their policies. If the game is played repeatedly the system will approach a Nash equilibrium but not necessarily the centralized optimal solution. As an example we consider a system with one-for-one ordering retailers.     

燃煤电厂超低排放湿法脱硫治霾影响分析

根据燃煤电厂湿法脱硫出口污染物排放浓度及其排放绩效,分析了超低排放湿法脱硫的治霾效果,阐明了湿法脱硫有利于减少SO₂、颗粒物、SO₃的排放量,这些污染物都是形成雾霾的前体物,表明超低排放湿法脱硫对雾霾治理有积极的贡献。同时,烟气超低排放具有协同治理有色烟羽的能力,对于有色烟羽治理应采取因地制宜的策略。煤电行业广泛开展烟气超低排放改造后,大气污染物排放量持续减少,空气环境质量逐年改善,湿法脱硫、烟气超低排放功不可没。     

Sustainable development of China's commercial vehicles

Automobiles are the major contributor to fuel consumption and emission of pollutants.The growth of the vehicle fleet has also placed enormous pressure on China's energy supply and environment.Thus sustainable development of the Chinese automotive industry must pay significant attention to fuel-saving and emission-reduction of vehicles.Although commercial vehicles make up only about 20%of the entire automobile fleet,their contribution to energy-consumption and emission of pollutants is significant.Thus,priority should be given to fuel-saving and emission-reduction of commercial vehicles.As a result of concerted efforts by Chinese government,industry and enterprises,great progress has been made in technologies concerning new-energy,intelligent and lightweight automobiles.However,compared with developed countries,the level of lightweighting of commercial vehicles produced in China remains comparably low.This means that great potential for development of lightweight commercial vehicles in China exists and it will be an efficient path towards fuel-saving and emission-reduction.     

The challenges of COVID-19 control policies for sustainable development of business: Evidence from service industries

Such large-scale disruptions as the pandemic increase the uncertainty and risk related to business. Therefore, the business continuity management (BCM) has become an essential technical solution for enterprise emergency response. Since the beginning of 2020, the COVID-19 has spread worldwide at an alarming rate causing many threats to sustainable development of the business sector. The decline in consumer demand has hugely impacted service industries, such as wholesale and retail sales, tourism. Enterprise production and operations have faced severe challenges. In this study, we develop a risk factor analysis of BCM under the presence of COVID-19 in China. Based on a statistical survey of 940 enterprises in Hangzhou City, China, this study employs ordinal logistic regression to explore the hindering effect of risk factors introduced by the epidemic on business performance. Then, the interpretive structure model (ISM) is applied to analyze the hierarchical structure of the factors under examination. The key factors influencing the enterprise production and operation during COVID-19 outbreak significantly differ across the sub-sectors of the service industry. Therefore, this paper assesses the resilience of the productive technologies and business models of different industries amid the pandemic. This paper proposes epidemic prevention and control strategy focusing on investment and government regulation to ensure sustainable business development.     

Reactive scheduling in a make-to-order flexible job shop with re-entrant process and assembly: a mathematical programming approach

A mixed-integer linear programming model is presented for the scheduling of flexible job shops, a production mode characteristic of make-to-order industries. Re-entrant process (multiple visits to the same machine group) and a final assembly stage are simultaneously considered in the model. The formulation uses a continuous time representation and optimises an objective function that is a weighted sum of order earliness, order tardiness and in-process inventory. An algorithm for predictive-reactive scheduling is derived from the proposed model to deal with the arrival of new orders. This is illustrated with a realistic example based on data from the mould making industry. Different reactive scheduling scenarios, ranging from unchanged schedule to full re-scheduling, are optimally generated for order insertion in a predictive schedule. Since choosing the most suitable scenario requires balancing criteria of scheduling efficiency and stability, measures of schedule changes were computed for each re-scheduling solution. The short computational times obtained are promising regarding future application of this approach in the manufacturing environment studied.