CO2 adsorption performance of pyrolized and activated waste streams

Please click Additional Files below to see the full abstrac

Illuminating the World Cup effect : night lights evidence from South Africa

This paper evaluates the economic impact of the $14 billion preparatory investments for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. We use satellite data on night light luminosity at municipality and electoral district level as a proxy for economic development, applying synthetic control methods for estimation. For the average World Cup municipality, we find significantly positive, short-run effects before the tournament, corresponding to a reduction of unemployment by 1.3 percentage points. At the electoral district level, we reveal distinct effect heterogeneity, where especially investments in transport infrastructure are shown to have long-lasting, positive effects, particularly in more rural areas

Cold flow modelling of dual fluidised bed pyrolysi

High temperature pyrolysis at about 600-700°C of carbon containing waste materials (plastic waste, shredded old tires, biogenic residues, etc.) is an attractive technology for substitution of fossil fuels in industrial processes. A dual fluidized bed system is investigated in a scaled cold flow model. This model consists of a riser as combustion section and a bubbling fluidized bed as pyrolysis section. The pyrolysis section is aimed to convert the solid feed material into pyrolysis oil as well as permanent gas components. This gas stream can be directly used e.g. in rotary kilns at temperatures of 400-600°C with high tar content and therefore high heating value. The char is transported with the bed material to the riser to provide the energy for the pyrolysis, transported via the hot bed material. Moreover, the pyrolysing section will be used to separate unconvertable materials such as metal pieces, stones, etc. from the process. For certain feed materials the pyrolysing section could be built as circulating fluidized bed to perform a classification of the feed material. Thus different residence time in the pyrolyser can be achieved, depending on the fuel particle size and fluidization. The results are displayed inside a regime map of gas-solid fluidized beds. Bed material residence times as well as residence times of model particles of the feedstock are given. The investigations lead to a design of a system to be applicable for various feedstock materials as input for industrial processes

Cold flow modelling of dual fluidised bed pyrolysis

High temperature pyrolysis at about 600-700°C of carbon containing waste materials (plastic waste, shredded old tires, biogenic residues, etc.) is an attractive technology for substitution of fossil fuels in industrial processes. A dual fluidized bed system is investigated in a scaled cold flow model. This model consists of a riser as combustion section and a bubbling fluidized bed as pyrolysis section. The pyrolysis section is aimed to convert the solid feed material into pyrolysis oil as well as permanent gas components. This gas stream can be directly used e.g. in rotary kilns at temperatures of 400-600°C with high tar content and therefore high heating value. The char is transported with the bed material to the riser to provide the energy for the pyrolysis, transported via the hot bed material. Moreover, the pyrolysing section will be used to separate unconvertable materials such as metal pieces, stones, etc. from the process. For certain feed materials the pyrolysing section could be built as circulating fluidized bed to perform a classification of the feed material. Thus different residence time in the pyrolyser can be achieved, depending on the fuel particle size and fluidization. The results are displayed inside a regime map of gas-solid fluidized beds. Bed material residence times as well as residence times of model particles of the feedstock are given. The investigations lead to a design of a system to be applicable for various feedstock materials as input for industrial processes

O₂-sensitive microcavity arrays: A new platform for oxygen measurements in 3D cell cultures

Oxygen concentration plays a crucial role in (3D) cell culture. However, the oxygen content in vitro is usually not comparable to the in vivo situation, which is partly due to the fact that most experiments are performed under ambient atmosphere supplemented with 5% CO2, which can lead to hyperoxia. Cultivation under physiological conditions is necessary, but also fails to have suitable measurement methods, especially in 3D cell culture. Current oxygen measurement methods rely on global oxygen measurements (dish or well) and can only be performed in 2D cultures. In this paper, we describe a system that allows the determination of oxygen in 3D cell culture, especially in the microenvironment of single spheroids/organoids. For this purpose, microthermoforming was used to generate microcavity arrays from oxygensensitive polymer films. In these oxygen-sensitive microcavity arrays (sensor arrays), spheroids cannot only be generated but also cultivated further. In initial experiments we could show that the system is able to perform mitochondrial stress tests in spheroid cultures to characterize mitochondrial respiration in 3D. Thus, with the help of sensor arrays, it is possible to determine oxygen label-free and in real-time in the immediate microenvironment of spheroid cultures for the first time

Does Unfairness Hurt Women? The Effects of Losing Unfair Competitions

How do men and women differ in their persistence after experiencing failure in a competitive environment? We tackle this question by combining a large online experiment (N=2,086) with machine learning. We find that when losing is unequivocally due to merit, both men and women exhibit a significant decrease in subsequent tournament entry. However, when the prior tournament is unfair, i.e., a loss is no longer necessarily based on merit, women are more discouraged than men. These results suggest that transparent meritocratic criteria may play a key role in preventing women from falling behind after experiencing a loss

Perceived wages and the gender gap in STEM fields

We estimate gender differences in elicited wage expectations among German Uni- versity students applying for STEM and non-STEM fields. Descriptively, women expect to earn less than men and also have lower expectations about wages of average graduates across different fields. Using a two-step estimation procedure accounting for self-selection, we find that the gender gap in own expected wages can be explained to the extent of 54-69% by wage expectations for average graduates across different fields. However, gender differences in the wage expectations for average graduates across different fields do not contribute to explaining the gender gap in the choice of STEM majors

Synthesizing Cash for Clunkers: Stabilizing the Car Market, Hurting the Environment?

We examine the impact of the EUR 5 billion German Cash-for-Clunkers program on vehicle registrations and respective CO2 emissions. To construct proper counterfactuals, we develop the multivariate synthetic control method using time series of economic predictors (MSCMT) and show (asymptotic) unbiasedness of the corresponding effect estimator under quite general conditions. Using cross-validation for determining an optimal specification of predictors, we do not find significant effects for CO2 emissions, while the stimulus’ impact on vehicle sales is strongly positive. Modeling different buyer subgroups, we disentangle this effect: 530,000 purchases were simply windfall gains; 550,000 were pulled forward; and 850,000 vehicles would not have been purchased in absence of the subsidy, worth EUR 17 billion

Overconfidence and gender differences in wage expectations

We analyze the impact of (over-)confidence on gender differences in expected start-ing salaries using elicited beliefs of prospective university students in Germany. According to our results, female students have lower wage expectations and are less overconfident than their male counterparts. Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions of the mean show that 7.7% of the gender gap in wage expectations is attributable to a higher overconfidence of males. Decompositions of the unconditional quantiles of expected salaries suggest that the contribution of gender differences in confidence to the gender gap is particularly strong at the bottom and top of the wage expectation distribution

Use of Terrestrial Laser Scanning Technology for Long Term High Precision Deformation Monitoring

The paper presents a new methodology for high precision monitoring of deformations with a long term perspective using terrestrial laser scanning technology. In order to solve the problem of a stable reference system and to assure the high quality of possible position changes of point clouds, scanning is integrated with two complementary surveying techniques, i.e., high quality static GNSS positioning and precise tacheometry. The case study object where the proposed methodology was tested is a high pressure underground pipeline situated in an area which is geologically unstable