Characteristics and Behavior of Di erent Catalysts Used for Water Decontamination in Photooxidation and Ozonation Processes

The objective of this study was to summarize the results obtained in a wide research project carried out for more than 15 years on the catalytic activity of di erent catalysts (activated carbon, metal–carbon xerogels/aerogels, iron-doped silica xerogels, ruthenium metal complexes, reduced graphene oxide-metal oxide composites, and zeolites) in the photooxidation (by using UV or solar radiation) and ozonation of water pollutants, including herbicides, naphthalenesulfonic acids, sodium para-chlorobenzoate, nitroimidazoles, tetracyclines, parabens, sulfamethazine, sodium diatrizoate, cytarabine, and surfactants. All catalysts were synthesized and then texturally, chemically, and electronically characterized using numerous experimental techniques, including N2 and CO2 adsorption, mercury porosimetry, thermogravimetric analysis, X-ray di raction, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, di use reflectance UV–vis spectroscopy, photoluminescence analysis, and transmission electron microscopy. The behavior of these materials as photocatalysts and ozonation catalysts was related to their characteristics, and the catalytic mechanisms in these advanced oxidation processes were explored. Investigations were conducted into the e ects on pollutant degradation, total organic carbon reduction, and water toxicity of operational variables and the presence of di erent chemical species in ultrapure, surface, ground, and wastewaters. Finally, a review is provided of the most recent and relevant published studies on photocatalysis and catalyzed ozonation in water treatments using similar catalysts to those examined in our project.Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness CTQ2016-80978-C2-1-REuropean Union (EU) CTQ2016-80978-C2-1-RJunta de Andalucía P18-RT-419

Best available techniques in municipal solid waste incineration: state of the art in Spain and Portugal

In the year 2010 more than 24 Mt and 5 Mt of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) were generated in Spain and Portugal. Landfilling, incineration and recycling are the most common treatments. In 2010, in the Iberian Peninsula between 58-6 2 % of the MSW generated was sent to the landfill, 9-19 % was incinerated and the rest was recycled and composting (EUROSTAT, 2010). Despite landfilling is still the most common practice, waste treatment by means of an incineration process has increased. The main advantages of this type of waste treatment are the reduction of mass and volume of residues and the energy recovery. Nevertheless, incineration had gained a bad reputation owing to the environmental impact, in particular, due to the emissions of acid gases, dioxins and furans (PCDD/F) and greenhouse gases. To assess the environmental advantages and disadvantages as well as the potential environmental impacts of waste incineration a life cycle perspective is required. Within this framework is the development of FENIX-Giving Packaging a New Life, a 3-year European LIFE+ funded project. This work is just the first step within this project where a database and a model based on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to assess the environmental impacts of waste incineration in Spain and Portugal will be developed. Particularly, the aim of this paper is to review the different technologies applied to MSW solid waste incineration and to carry out both the diagnosis of the current situation at the incineration plants in Spain and Portugal and to collect data to develop the Life Cycle Inventory (LCI)

Occupational stress and burnout among physiotherapists: a cross-sectional survey in Cadiz (Spain)

Background Occupational stress is considered an ongoing epidemic. An inadequate response to a stressful situation can trigger burnout syndrome. In this way, the assistant services (health and teaching) often reach higher levels of burnout. The present study aimed to measure the level of occupational stress and burnout in physiotherapists in the province of Cadiz (Spain), working in the public and/or private sector. Methods This was an observational, descriptive and cross-sectional study. A sample of 272 physiotherapists took part in the study. The variables measured were sociodemographic variables, working conditions, level of occupational stress and burnout. Burnout includes three characteristics or dimensions: emotional exhaustion (EE), depersonalization (DP) and personal accomplishment (PA). Correspondence analysis of the sociodemographic, organizational and psychological variables were analyzed using Chi-squared significance tests. Spearman correlations and a linear regression analysis were also carried out to determine the dependence between occupational stress and burnout. Results The results showed that 30.51% of physiotherapists suffered from a high level of occupational stress, while 34.56% suffered from an average level. There was a clear dependence between a high level of stress and professionals who felt stressed during their academic training period (p = 0.02), those who were in temporary work (p = 0.03) and those with over 10 years of professional experience (p = 0.05). The overall level of burnout was low, since only the EE dimension had a high value; the average was 21.64 +/- 10.57. The DP (6.57 +/- 4.65) and PA (39.52 +/- 5.97) levels were low. There was a significant dependence (p < 0.05) between EE and the following sociodemographic variables: work shift, willingness to study the same degree, stress and inadequate academic training, and a stressful job. In addition, a significant correlation was found between occupational stress and the EE and DP dimensions of burnout. Conclusions A high prevalence of occupational stress was detected among physiotherapists in Cadiz (Spain). The levels of occupational stress and its correlation with burnout show that the cumulative effect of stress could lead to burnout. Furthermore, these results regarding occupational stress show the necessity of developing coping strategies for physiotherapists and healthcare staff

Pobreza en la ocupación e instrumentos de reacción

Unión Europea,Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad y el Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional DER2015-63701-C3-1-

Entrenamiento y evaluación de una competencia genérica para los títulos de grado universitarios

Este trabajo surge ante la necesidad de entrenar y evaluar una competencia genérica en la materia de Zoología del Grado de Biología “Solidez en los conocimientos básicos de la profesión”. Consideramos que es fundamental que los estudiantes adquieran conocimientos suficientes para valorar la importancia de los aspectos genéricos que poseen los animales tales como, morfología, anatomía, histología, fisiología, embriología, etología y ecología. Al ser una asignatura difícil y poco atractiva para los estudiantes hemos utilizado la estrategia de aprendizaje entre iguales y un wiki dónde se han colgado todos los materiales trabajados por los grupos de expertos

Introducing life cycle thinking to define best available techniques for products: Application to the anchovy canning industry

This study presents a method based on life cycle assessment to reduce and simplify the decision-making process and to identify the best available techniques of a product. This procedure facilitates the selection of a technical alternative from an environmental point of view and the reduction of emission levels and the consumption of energy and primary resources. This method comprises the following four steps: (i) the identification of the current techniques of a specific product, (ii) the application of a life cycle assessment to determine the hot spots, (iii) the proposal of the best available techniques and (iv) the development of a best available techniques reference document (step not implemented in our case study). The Cantabrian anchovy canning industry is selected as a case study due to the importance of this sector from economic, social and touristic points of view. An entire life cycle assessment of one can of anchovies in extra virgin olive oil is conducted. The results indicated that the hot spots of the life cycle were the production of aluminium cans (for packaging) and extra virgin olive oil and the management of the packaging waste. According to these results, the study proposes several improvements, such as packaging recycling and several best available techniques for the canned anchovy product.The authors thank the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of the Spanish Government for their financial support via the project GeSAC-Conserva: Sustainable Management of the Cantabrian Anchovies (CTM2013-43539-R) and to Julia Celaya for her technical support. Jara Laso thanks the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of Spanish Government for their financial support via the research fellowship BES2014-069368. Pere Fullana y Alba Bala thanks the UNESCO Chair in Life Cycle and Climate Change

Life cycle energy assessment of pneumatic waste collection static systems: A case study of energy balance for decision-making process

Waste collection presents a significant influence in the environmental sustainability of municipal solid waste (MSW) management. Conventional door-to-door collection consumes high amounts of fuel for waste transportation, thus generating significant direct greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). Pneumatic collection emerges as an alternative to conventional trucking system, comprised by an underground network of long distance pipelines that carries MSW fractions to a central collection plant where the waste is collected and compacted. Such systems represent a way of arranging waste collection in densely populated urban areas and have recently been used in the design of smart cities to control waste flows. While this technology apparently reduces direct air emissions, suffers from large energy demand derived from vacuum production for waste suction. This work compares both conventional door-to-door and pneumatic collection systems from a life cycle approach, obtaining that the latter accounts for 5 and 3 times more energy demand and CO2-eq. emissions than conventional collection, respectively. Results suggests that the electricity consumption and the origin of electricity have a significant influence on the results, since vacuum production is responsible for more than 99 % of the total impacts for pneumatic scenario, while diesel for trucking accounts to around 70 % of the conventional system impacts. Greener electricity mixes and less energy consuming materials are required in order to ensure the environmental sustainability of pneumatic systems.The authors are grateful for the funding of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through the Ceres-Procom: Food production and consumption strategies for climate change mitigation (CTM2016-76176- C2-1-R) (AEI/FEDER, UE). The authors wish to extend their acknowledgment to all people involved in the LIFE FENIX Project, as well as the European LIFE Financing Programme. In addition, they want to acknowledge the support of The Circular Lab founded by Ecoembes

Incorporating linear programing and life cycle thinking into environmental sustainability decision-making: a case study on anchovy canning industry

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a powerful tool to support environmental informed decisions among product and process alternatives. LCA results reflect the process stage contributions to several environmental impacts, which should be made mutually comparable to help in the decision-making process. Aggregated environmental indexes enable the translation of this set of metrics into a one final score, by defining the attached weights to impacts. Weighting values reflect the corresponding relevance assigned to each environmental impact. Current weighing schemes are based on pre-articulation of preferences, without considering the specific features of the system under study. This paper presents a methodology that combines LCA methodology and linear programming optimisation to determine the environmental improvement actions that conduct to a more sustainable production. LCA was applied using the environmental sustainability assessment methodology to obtain two main indexes: natural resources (NR) and environmental burdens (EB). Normalised indexes were optimised to determine the optimal joint of weighting factors that lead to an optimised global Environmental Sustainability Index. The proposed methodology was applied to a food sector, in particular, to the anchovy canning industry in Cantabria Region (Northern Spain). By maximising the objective function composed of NR and EB variables, it is possible to find the optimal joint of weights that identify the best environmental sustainable options. This study proves that LCA can be applied in combination with linear programing tools as a part of the decision-making process in the development of more sustainable processes and products.Authors thank to Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of Spanish Government for the financial support through the project GeSAC-Conserva (CTM2013-43539-R). Jara Laso also thanks to the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of Spanish Government for the financial support through the research fellowship BES-2014-069368

Nutritional data management of food losses and waste under a life cycle approach: case study of the Spanish agri-food system

Food losses and waste (FLW) tend to be referred to in terms of mass, occasionally in economic terms, disregarding the nutritional-cost nexus of such losses. This work aims to estimate the nutritional food losses and waste (NFLW) of the Spanish agri-food system in terms of energy, macronutrients, fibre, and vitamins and minerals along the entire supply chain. Nutritional food losses (NFL) occurring prior to the distribution level, and nutritional food waste (NFW) at the retail and consumption stages, were distinguished, and 48 representative food commodities and 32 nutrients were characterised. To provide insight into the extent of these values, the results are compared to the equivalent recommended daily intake. In addition, the NFLW for an average Spanish citizen is compared to that for other representative diets: Mediterranean, lacto-ovo-vegetarian, and vegan along with the Spanish recommended guidelines. Finally, a nutritional cost footprint (NCF) indicator combining nutritional and economic variables is proposed to define recovery strategies. The results suggest that 4251 kj (1016 kcal), 70.7 g proteins, 22 g dietary fibre, 975 ug vitamin A, 117 mg vitamin C and 332 mg calcium daily per capita are embedded within Spanish FLW. Agricultural production accounts for 40% of NFLW, and fruits and vegetables are the categories with the largest potential for nutritional and economic food wastage mitigation. Results from this paper provide NFLW data and analysis to strengthen and simplify the decision-making process of FLW management strategies.The authors are grateful for the funding of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through the Ceres-Procom Project: Food production and consumption strategies for climate change mitigation (CTM2016-76176-C2-1-R) (AEI/FEDER, UE)