Green and cool roofs’ urban heat island mitigation potential in European climates for office buildings under free floating conditions

Heat island which is the most documented phenomenon of climatic change is related to the increase of urban temperatures compared to the suburban. Among the various urban heat island mitigation techniques, green and cool roofs are the most promising since they simultaneously contribute to buildings’ energy efficiency. The aim of the present paper is to study the mitigation potential of green and cool roofs by performing a comparative analysis under diverse boundary conditions defining their climatic, optical, thermal and hydrological conditions. The impact of cool roof’s thermal mass, insulation level and solar reflectance as well as the effect of green roofs’ irrigation rate and vegetation are examined. The parametric study is based on detailed simulation techniques coupled with a comparative presentation of the released integrated sensible heat for both technologies versus a conventional roof under various climatic conditions.     

Experimental and numerical studies of the effects of hydrogen addition on the structure of a laminar methane–nitrogen jet in hot coflow under MILD conditions

In this work we investigate the effects of hydrogen addition on the flame structure of MILD combustion both experimentally and numerically using a laminar-jet-in-hot-coflow (LJHC) geometry. The addition of hydrogen appreciably decreases the flame height (∼25%), however only modestly affects the maximal flame temperature and the thickness of combustion zone. The NO distribution is dominated by mixing of the NO formed in the coflow with the reaction products of the diluted fuel, with negligible NO formation from the fuel in all flames studied. The numerical data are in reasonably good agreement with the measurements.     

Gasoline,diesel and climate policy implications—Insights from the recent evolution of new car sales in Germany

With the aid of detailed automobile sales data this paper looks into changes in car attributes and CO₂ emissions in Germany in the years 1998−2008, both at aggregate level and within individual car segments. New car CO₂ emissions have not decreased at the expected levels because of negligible downsizing and increasing power of diesel cars. Interestingly, today there are relatively more models available with higher-than-average emission levels than in the late 1990s. We further constructed matched pairs of gasoline and diesel models in order to explore how their power and emissions ratio has evolved during the same decade. Results imply that German consumers may not have chosen to buy the diesel powered matched pair of a gasoline car they would have bought a few years earlier; instead they selected among the variety of diesel cars available in the market, and preferred a more powerful diesel car than what they might have bought otherwise. These findings reinforce the view that low-carbon transport policies must address the issue of changes in vehicle size and performance, which compromise the environmental effectiveness of regulations. In contrast to current EU regulations, CO₂-related standards should discourage increases in a vehicle's weight and power.     

Hydrogen production from dimethyl ether over Cu/γ-Al2O3 catalyst with zeolites and its effects in the lean NOx trap performance

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of mixing three kinds of zeolites (MFI, MOR, and BEA) with the dimethyl ether steam reforming(DME-SR) Cu/γ-Al₂O₃ catalyst to improve H₂ yield at low temperatures, and to identify the de-NOx performance of a combined system of SR catalyst and Lean NOx Trap(LNT). The SR catalyst was prepared by the impregnation method, and a commercialized LNT catalyst was used. The SR reaction experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of the coexistence of CO₂, O₂, NO, and NO₂ among the exhaust gases of the DME engine on the H₂ yield. The study found that the proper mixing of Cu/γ-Al₂O₃ and zeolite increased the H₂ yield at low temperature improving DME hydrolysis. The variation in the H₂ yield according to the kinds of zeolite in the SR catalyst was due to the characteristics of zeolite. The Cu10/γ-Al₂O₃ catalyst mixed with 10% MOR showed the highest H₂ yield. A combined system of SR and LNT uses the H₂ generated mainly from the Cu-based catalyst using the DME-SR reaction for the LNT. When H₂ generated from the SR (Cu10/γ-Al₂O₃ + MOR10) catalyst was used as the reductant of LNT, the NOx conversion at 350 °C or below was improved up to 15% compared to when DME was used. This demonstrates that H₂ as the reductant of LNT is more beneficial than DME. The H₂ generated from the SR catalyst can be used as the reductant of LNT in an after-treatment system. Meanwhile, the SR catalyst that was mixed with zeolite caused the carbon deposition, but the combined system of SR + LNT caused no carbon deposition because the carbon deposited on the SR catalyst reacted with O₂ during the lean-operating period.