Considerations When Applying Simplified LCA Approaches in the Wine Sector

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has been increasingly used to improve the environmental performance of food systems and simplification of LCA appears to be a vital question, especially for Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). Following a literature review on simplified LCA tools and their subsequent ranking, some of the best-rated tools were implemented and the results were examined in parallel to those of a full LCA

Amoco CD commercial polypropylene catalyst tailor-made for the Amoco-Chisso gas phase process

The commercial profile of the Amoco CD MgCl2 supported polypropylene catalyst is presented. The development, the unique method of preparation/production, with emphasis on particle morphology, and the parameters affecting particle size (PS), particle size distribution (PSD), and particle shape are discussed in detail. The outstanding performance of the catalyst, tailoredmade for the Amoco-Chisso gas phase process, is attributable to synergistic effects, originating from catalyst and process design factors. Catalyst median particle size (d50) may be controlled in the 7-100 microns range. Parameters affecting PS and PSD during catalyst support preparation include: agitation speed, temperature, organic reagent to Mg ratios, morphology controlling agents, and deliberate spiking of the aromatic solvent used with appropriate contaminants. Particle shape variation between the cubic and spheroidal is affected by the types of reagents used, the ratios of these reagents to Mg, the time/temperature profile of the procedure, and the sequence of reagent addition during catalyst support preparation. Catalyst activation takes place in several steps by thermal treatment of the support with TiCl4/toluene solutions. Cost-effective TiCl4/toluene reuse system from theactivation streams has been put in place to reduce waste material considerably. There is an optimum temperature of activation close to 120˚C. The progress of activation as well as catalyst quality may be monitored by IR spectroscopy, expressed in easily identifiable IR fingerprint patterns, which correlate well with the catalyst performance. More recently a new concept of supported catalysts based on the CD technology has been developed. It features organometallic complexes instead of just TiCl4 as the polymerization active centers. The new catalysts show improved performance and advantageous polymer product properties. We suggest that the newly invented organometallic complexes may open a new era in polyolefin catalysis, including polyethylene copolymers. The success of the CD and Amoco-Chisso process is illustrated by the two dozen commercial plants worldwide that use the technology, and the recent licensing advances by Ineos, the successor of Amoco, for this polypropylene technology

Catalytic pyrolysis of plastic wastes - Towards an economically viable process

The ultimate goal of our project is an economically viable pyrolysis process to recover useful fuels and/or chemicals from plastics- containing wastes. This paper reports the effects of various promoted and unpromoted binary oxide catalysts on yields and compositions of liquid organic products, as measured in a small laboratory pyrolysis reactor. On the basis of these results, a commercial scale catalytic pyrolysis reactor was simulated by the Aspen software and rough costs were estimated. The results suggest that such a process has potential economic viability

Towards a Deep Automatic Generation of Figure-ground Maps

Figure-ground maps play a key role in many disciplines where urban planning or analysis is involved. In this context, the automatic generation of such maps with respect to certain requirements and constraints is an important task. This paper presents a first step towards a deep automatic generation of figure-ground maps where the built density of the generated scenes is controlled and taken into account. This is preformed building upon a Geographic Data Translation model which has been applied to generate less available geospatial features, e.g. building footprints, from more widely available geospatial data, e.g. street network data, using conditional Generative Adversarial Networks. A novel processing approach is introduced to incorporate the population density and the built density accordingly. Furthermore, the impact of both the level of detail of the street network, i.e. its sparsity or density, and the spatial resolution of the training data on the generated figure-ground maps has been investigated. The generated maps and the qualitative results reveal an obvious impact of these parameters on the layout of built and unbuilt areas. Our approach paves the way for the expansion of existing districts by figure-ground maps of future neighbourhoods considering factors such as density and further parameters which will be subject of future work

Organotitanium Click Chemistry

The click chemistry of titanium exemplified by the “green” [3+2] cycloaddition of the [Ti-N3] moiety with nitriles RCN to form a tetrazole ligand, is currently limited in scope, but the future of this open and wide field is bright, full of promising new synthetic approaches discussed herein, for pharmacological and bio orthogonal applications. This prediction is based on emerging click reaction possibilities of existing titanium azides, from the commercially available Ti(N3)4, Cp2Ti(N3)2, (iPrO)2Ti(N3)2, and their multiple derivatives, participating in cycloaddition, exchange and other reaction types with alkynes, alkenes, nitriles, and related click synthons. Structural, mechanistic, stereo control and other effects on reactivity will be briefly discussed. The main emphasis in this review article is on recently discovered organotitanium complexes like 2-phenylindole titanium dichloride, serving as springboards of a new era in organotitanium click chemistry, by the original syntheses of potentially bioactive complexes.</jats:p

Life Cycle-Based Sustainability and Circularity Indicators for the Tourism Industry: A Literature Review

The tourism industry is one of the fastest growing sectors, even though in the last couple of years there has been a negative effect due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This growth has led to an increase in environmental, economic and social impacts. Furthermore, the transition towards a circular economy has become one of the priorities of the European Union given its orientation towards sustainable development. However, the concept of circular tourism has been poorly analysed until now. This paper aims at identifying a set of life cycle-based sustainability- and circularity-related indicators for the hospitality sector by means of a literature review and a content analysis. It presents an overview of the most relevant themes and indicators in the tourism sector, showing that carbon footprint and resource-related indicators are especially relevant. Given the complexity of the measurement of circularity and the fact that life cycle-based indicators have started to be considered in this field, the paper also proposes some criteria for indicator selection to make their application more feasible for hospitality actors

New Antitumor Organotitanium Complexes with a Pendant Biologically Active Diazo Group

The ligand of antitumor organotitanium or other metallodug complexes plays a pivotal role in determining the mechanism of their cytotoxic action. Although the specific contribution of several ligands is generally well established, our understanding of the overall mechanism of the cytotoxic action of the complexes themselves is limited and incomplete in most cases, except perhaps in the case of cis-platin. A strategy to monitor the mode of cytotoxic action of candidate antitumor complexes requires tagging with bioactive side chains like a diazo group, for in-cell site-specific labelling. In this review we expand on a previous publication [1] to discuss several new methods for the preparation of potential antitumor organotitanium complexes with a pendant diazo group, aiming at better understanding their mode of cytotoxic action. By introducing this new class of titanium-based potential antitumor agents, we hope to contribute to the world-wide effort in this important area of medicinal chemistry research, for an ultimate usable titanium-based antitumor drug

Organotitanium Click Chemistry

The click chemistry of titanium exemplified by the “green” [3+2] cycloaddition of the [Ti-N3] moiety with nitriles RCN to form a tetrazole ligand, is currently limited in scope, but the future of this open and wide field is bright, full of promising new synthetic approaches discussed herein, for pharmacological and bio orthogonal applications. This prediction is based on emerging click reaction possibilities of existing titanium azides, from the commercially available Ti(N3)4, Cp2Ti(N3)2 (iPrO)2Ti(N3)2, and their multiple derivatives, participating in cycloaddition, exchange and other reaction types with alkynes, alkenes, nitriles, and related click synthons. Structural, mechanistic, stereo control and other effects on reactivity will be briefly discussed. The main emphasis in this review article is on recently discovered organotitanium complexes like 2-phenylindole titanium dichloride, serving as springboards of a new era in organotitanium click chemistry, by the original syntheses of potentially bioactive complexes.</jats:p