Evaluación del impacto ambiental de diferentes sistemas constructivos industrializados comparado con un sistema constructivo convencional

El paper analiza el impacto ambiental motivado por la construcción de diversos edificios de viviendas, recientemente construidos, a partir de la evaluación del CO2 generado y la energía consumida en la elaboración de los materiales que los componen así como el transporte de dichos materiales o componentes a la obra. El interés del trabajo reside en que se ha podido comparar el impacto ambiental provocado por la construcción de edificios realizados con diferentes tecnologías industrializadas ( TECCON, COMPACT HABIT, MODULTEC Y BSCP) con el provocado por la construcción de un edificio de viviendas a partir de técnicas convencionales; estructura de hormigón fachadas de ladrillo cerámico y carpinterías de aluminio. Todos los edificios estudiados fueron construidos en Cataluña recientemente y son de promoción pública. Se han utilizado en todos los casos los mismos datos de impacto básico de los materiales de construcción y el mismo criterio para evaluar el impacto ambiental debido al transporte

Parallel computing aided design of earthing systems for electrical substations in non homogeneous soil models

[Abstract] An accurate design of grounding systems is essential to assure the safety of the persons, to protect the equipment and to avoid interruptions in the power supply. In order to attain these targets, the equivalent electrical resistance of the system and the potential distribution on the earth surface in fault conditions are necessary to compute. In this paper, it is presented a numerical approach for grounding analysis embedded in stratified soils and its implementation in a high-perfomance parallel computer. The feasibility of this system is shown with its application to the analysis of a real grounding system in a layered soil.Ministerio de Educación y Cultura; 1FD97-010

Parallel computing aided design of earthing systems for electrical substations in non-homogeneous soil models

An accurate design of grounding systems is essential to assure the safety of the persons, to protect the equipment and to avoid interruptions in the power supply. In order to attain these targets, it is necessary to compute the equivalent electrical resistance of the system and the potential distribution on the earth surface in fault conditions. In this paper, a numerical approach for grounding analysis embedded in stratified soils and its implementation in a high-performance parallel computer are presented. The feasibility of this system is shown with its application to the grounding analysis in layered soils by using the geometry of real grounding grids

Mimicking human ingestion of microplastics: oral bioaccessibility tests of bisphenol A and phthalate esters under fed and fasted states

info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/AEI/Plan Estatal de Investigación Científica y Técnica y de Innovación 2017-2020/PID2020-117686RB-C33/ES/PLATAFORMAS ANALITICAS FLUIDICAS PARA EVALUAR LA EXPOSICION HUMANA Y AMBIENTAL A CONTAMINANTES EMERGENTESNotwithstanding the fact that microplastic fragments were encountered in the human stool, little effort has been geared towards elucidating the impact of chemical additives upon the human health. In this work, standardized bioaccessibility tests under both fasting and fed conditions are herein applied to the investigation of human oral bioaccessibility of plastic additives and monomers (i.e. eight phthalate esters (PAEs) and bisphenol A (BPA)) in low-density polyethylene (LDPE) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) microplastics. The generation of phthalate monoesters is evaluated in the time course of the bioaccessibility tests. Maximum gastric and gastrointestinal bioaccessibility fractions are obtained for dimethyl phthalate, diethyl phthalate and BPA, within the range of 55–83%, 40–68% and 37–67%, respectively, increasing to 56–92% and 41–70% for dimethyl phthalate and diethyl phthalate, respectively, whenever their hydrolysis products are considered. Bioaccessibility fractions of polar PAEs are dependent upon the physicochemical characteristics of the microplastics, with greater bioaccessibility for the rubbery polymer (LDPE). With the method herein proposed, oral bioaccessible pools of moderately to non-polar PAEs can be also accurately assessed for risk-assessment explorations, with values ranging from 1.8% to 32.2%, with again significantly larger desorption percentages for LDPE. Our results suggested that the highest gastric/gastrointestinal bioaccessibility of the eight PAEs and BPA is reached under fed-state gastrointestinal extraction conditions because of the larger amounts of surface-active biomolecules. Even including the bioaccessibility factor within human risk assessment/exposure studies to microplastics, concentrations of dimethyl phthalate, di-n-butyl phthalate and BPA exceeding 0.3% (w/w) may pose severe risks after oral uptake in contrast to the more hydrophobic congeners for which concentrations above 3% (w/w), except for diethylhexyl phthalate, would be toleratedThe authors acknowledge the financial support provided by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MCIN) and Spanish State Research Agency (AEI/10.13039/501100011033) through the projects CTM2017-84763-C3-2-R, CTM2017-84763-C3-3-R, CTM2017-90890-REDT, PID2020-117686RB-C32 and PID2020-117686RB-C33, by the “ERDF-A way of making Europe”, by the Galician Government (Consellería de Economía e Industria, Xunta de Galicia, ref. ED431C 2021/06) and by La Caixa–Fundación CajaCanarias for MJT-R contract. We would like to express our gratitude to Restek (kind gift of the Biphenyl column). The technical support on SEM images by Dr. Ferran Hierro from the Scientific and Technological Centre at the UIB is greatly acknowledgedS

SARS-CoV-2 and other main pathogenic microorganisms in the environment: situation in Galicia and Spain

In the context of the current COVID-19 pandemic, and mostly taking a broad perspective, it is clearly relevant to study environmental factors that could affect eventual future outbreaks due to coronaviruses and/or other pathogenic microorganisms. In view of that, the authors of this manuscript review the situation of SARS-CoV-2 and other main pathogenic microorganisms in the environment, focusing on Galicia and Spain. Overall, in addition to showing local data, it is put in evidence that, summed to all efforts being carried out to treat/control this and any other eventual future epidemic diseases, both at local and global levels, a deep attention should be paid to ecological/environmental aspects that have effects on the planet, its ecosystems and their relations/associations with the probability of spreading of eventual future pandemicsThis work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of science, innovation and universities [grant numbers RTI2018-099574-B-C21 and RTI2018-099574-B-C22]. It also received funds from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) (FEDER in Spain), being a complement to the previous grants, without additional grant numberS

ROB performance in a high luminosity scenario

oS(TIPP2014)37

Enhancing Energy Production with Exascale HPC Methods

High Performance Computing (HPC) resources have become the key actor for achieving more ambitious challenges in many disciplines. In this step beyond, an explosion on the available parallelism and the use of special purpose processors are crucial. With such a goal, the HPC4E project applies new exascale HPC techniques to energy industry simulations, customizing them if necessary, and going beyond the state-of-the-art in the required HPC exascale simulations for different energy sources. In this paper, a general overview of these methods is presented as well as some specific preliminary results.The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Programme (2014-2020) under the HPC4E Project (www.hpc4e.eu), grant agreement n° 689772, the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under the CODEC2 project (TIN2015-63562-R), and from the Brazilian Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation through Rede Nacional de Pesquisa (RNP). Computer time on Endeavour cluster is provided by the Intel Corporation, which enabled us to obtain the presented experimental results in uncertainty quantification in seismic imagingPostprint (author's final draft

Sulfadiazine, sulfamethazine and sulfachloropyridazine removal using three different porous materials: pine bark, “oak ash” and mussel shell

This work focuses on studying the efficacy of three different by-products to adsorb three antibiotics (sulfadiazine, SDZ; sulfamethazine, SMT; sulfachloropyridazine, SCP). These antibiotics can be considered pollutants of the environment when they reach water, as well as in cases where they are spread on soils through irrigation or contained in sewage sludge or livestock manure. In this study, batch-type adsorption/desorption experiments were performed for each of the three sulfonamides, adding 7 different concentrations of the antibiotics, going from 1 to 50 μmol L−1, and with contact time of 24 h. The results indicate that pine bark is the most efficient bioadsorbent among those studied, as it adsorbs up to 95% of the antibiotics added, while desorption is always less than 11%. However, for “oak ash” and mussel shell the adsorption is always lower than 45 and 15%, respectively, and desorption is high, reaching up to 49% from “oak ash” and up to 81% from mussel shell. Adsorption data showed good fitting to the Linear and Freundlich models, with R2 values between 0.98 and 1.00 in both cases. Kd and KF adsorption parameters showed similar values for the same sorbent materials but were much higher for pine bark than for the other two bioadsorbents. The Freundlich's n parameter showed values in the range 0.81–1.28. The highest KF values (and therefore the highest adsorption capacities) were obtained for the antibiotic SCP in pine bark. Pine bark showed the highest capacity to adsorb each of the antibiotics, increasing as a function of the concentration added. When the concentration of sulfonamide added was 50 μM, the amounts adsorbed were 780 μmol kg−1 for SDZ, 890 μmol kg−1 for SMT, and 870 μmol kg−1 for SCP. “Oak ash” and mussel shell have low adsorption capacity for all three sulfonamides, showing values always lower than 150 μmol kg−1 (oak ash) and 20 μmol kg−1 (mussel shell) when a concentration of 50 μmol L−1 of antibiotic is added. The results of this study could aid to make an appropriate management of the by-products studied, in order to facilitate their valorization and recycling in the treatment of environmental compartments polluted with sulfonamide antibioticsThis work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of science, innovation and universities [grant numbers RTI2018-099574-B-C21 and RTI2018-099574-B-C22]. It also received funds from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) (FEDER in Spain), being a complement to the previous grants, without additional grant number. M. Conde-Cid holds a pre-doctoral contract (FPU15/0280, Spanish Government). The research of Dr. Gustavo F. Coelho was also supported by the Improving Coordination of Senior Staff (CAPES), Post-Doctoral Program Abroad (PDE) Process number {88881.172297/2018-01} of the Brazilian Government. The sponsors had not involvement in study design; in the collection, analyses and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report, and in the decision to submit the article for publicationS

Relevance of sorption in bio-reduction of amoxicillin taking place in forest and crop soils

The fate of antibiotics reaching soils is a matter of concern, given its potential repercussions on public health and the environment. In this work, the potential bio-reduction of the antibiotic amoxicillin (AMX), affected by sorption and desorption, is studied for 17 soils with clearly different characteristics. To carry out these studies, batch-type tests were performed, adding increasing concentrations of AMX (0, 2.5, 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 μmol L−1) to the soils. For the highest concentration added (50 μmol L−1), the adsorption values for forest soils ranged from 90.97 to 102.54 μmol kg−1 (74.21–82.41% of the amounts of antibiotic added), while the range was 69.96–94.87 μmol kg−1 (68.31–92.56%) for maize soils, and 52.72–85.40 μmol kg−1 (50.96–82.55%) for vineyard soils. When comparing the results for all soils, the highest adsorption corresponded to those more acidic and with high organic matter and non-crystalline minerals contents. The best adjustment to adsorption models corresponded to Freundlich's. AMX desorption was generally <10%; specifically, the maximum was 6.5% in forest soils, and 16.9% in agricultural soils. These results can be considered relevant since they cover agricultural and forest soils with a wide range of pH and organic matter contents, for an antibiotic that, reaching the environment as a contaminant, can pose a potential danger to human and environmental healthThis research was funded by Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, grant numbers RTI 2018-099574-B-C21 and RTI 2018-099574-B-C22S

Efficacy of Different Waste and By-Products from Forest and Food Industries in the Removal/Retention of the Antibiotic Cefuroxime

Environmental pollution due to antibiotics is a serious problem. In this work, the adsorption and desorption of the antibiotic cefuroxime (CFX) were studied in four by-products/residues from the forestry and food industries. For this, batch-type experiments were carried out, adding increasing concentrations of CFX (from 0 to 50 µmol L−1) to 0.5 g of adsorbent. The materials with a pH higher than 9 (mussel shell and wood ash) were those that presented the highest adsorption percentages, from 71.2% (23.1 µmol kg−1) to 98.6% (928.0 µmol kg−1). For the rest of the adsorbents, the adsorption was also around 100% when the lowest concentrations of CFX were added, but the percentage dropped sharply when the highest dose of the antibiotic was incorporated. Adsorption data fitted well to the Langmuir and Freundlich models, with R2 greater than 0.9. Regarding desorption, the materials that presented the lowest values when the highest concentration of CFX was added were wood ash (0%) and mussel shell (2.1%), while pine bark and eucalyptus leaves presented the highest desorption (26.6% and 28.6%, respectively). Therefore, wood ash and mussel shell could be considered adsorbents with a high potential to be used in problems of environmental contamination by CFXThis research was funded by SPANISH MINISTRY OF SCIENCE, INNOVATION AND UNIVERSITIES, grant numbers RTI2018-099574-B-C21 and RTI2018-099574-B-C22S