203 research outputs found
Novos materiais de construção com tecnologias avançadas
Este artigo pretende apenas dar um contributo, assinalando alguns exemplos em que se
tem vindo a trabalhar e que refletem o uso de tecnologias avançadas na formulação e funcionalidade
de materiais de construção tradicionais. Um exemplo claro é o uso de aditivos que induzem novas
funções e que muitos deles pertencem ao grupo denominado como nanomateriais. A sua adição
coloca quase sempre problemas de incorporação e que requerem um trabalho de ajuste das
formulações e comportamentos no estado fresco ou endurecido. Este trabalho de investigação é
muitas vezes essencial para a otimização das funções que se pretendem que os materiais de
construção venham a demonstrar.
Neste grupo de investigação, resultante da cooperação entre centros de I&D e empresas em projetos
de colaboração diversos ao longo dos últimos anos, tem-se vindo a focar na introdução de novas
funções em materiais de construção tradicionais, para que ganhem um papel ativo em domínios
como o do conforto térmico ou da qualidade ambiental, dois pilares essenciais para uma construção
mais sustentável
Unravelling the Affinity of Alkali-Activated Fly Ash Cubic Foams towards Heavy Metals Sorption
In this work, alkali-activated fly ash-derived foams were produced at room temperature by direct foaming using aluminum powder. The 1 cm3 foams (cubes) were then evaluated as adsorbents to extract heavy metals from aqueous solutions. The foams’ selectivity towards lead, cadmium, zinc, and copper ions was evaluated in single, binary, and multicomponent ionic solutions. In the single ion assays, the foams showed much higher affinity towards lead, compared to the other heavy metals; at 10 ppm, the removal efficiency reached 91.9% for lead, 83.2% for cadmium, 74.6% for copper, and 64.6% for zinc. The greater selectivity for lead was also seen in the binary tests. The results showed that the presence of zinc is detrimental to cadmium and copper sorption, while for lead it mainly affects the sorption rate, but not the ultimate removal efficiency. In the multicomponent assays, the removal efficiency for all the heavy metals was lower than the values seen in the single ion tests. However, the superior affinity for lead was preserved. This study decreases the existing knowledge gap regarding the potential of alkali-activated materials to act as heavy metals adsorbents under different scenarios
Lime mud from cellulose industry as raw material in cement mortars
This study reports the use of lime mud (LM) in cement-based-mortars. Lime mud is a waste generated in the production of cellulose by the kraft mill process. It is mainly composed of CaCO3, a small amount of magnesium carbonate and other trace minerals. Mortars were prepared by adding different amounts of LM (10, 20 and 30% by weight of cement) in dry weight. The mortar compositions were evaluated through rheology and flow table measurements, assuring that all the samples exhibited adequate conditions for testing in both equipments. The hardened state properties were also evaluated through mechanical strengths at 7, 28 and 90 days of curing. Following a waste management solution perspective, this work intend to provide a general evaluation of LM application in cement based mortars, looking at both fresh and hardened properties in order to guarantee that the final application requirements are not hindered
Intercomparison of lidar, aircraft, and surface ozone measurements in the San Joaquin Valley during the California Baseline Ozone Transport Study (CABOTS)
The California Baseline Ozone Transport Study (CABOTS) was
conducted in the late spring and summer of 2016 to investigate the influence
of long-range transport and stratospheric intrusions on surface ozone
(O3) concentrations in California with emphasis on the San Joaquin
Valley (SJV), one of two extreme ozone non-attainment areas in the US.
One of the major objectives of CABOTS was to characterize the vertical
distribution of O3 and aerosols above the SJV to aid in the
identification of elevated transport layers and assess their surface
impacts. To this end, the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL)
deployed the Tunable Optical Profiler for Aerosol and oZone (TOPAZ) mobile
lidar to the Visalia Municipal Airport (36.315∘ N,
119.392∘ E) in the central SJV between 27 May and 7 August 2016.
Here we compare the TOPAZ ozone retrievals with co-located in situ surface
measurements and nearby regulatory monitors and also with airborne in situ measurements
from the University of California at Davis–Scientific Aviation (SciAv)
Mooney and NASA Alpha Jet Atmospheric eXperiment (AJAX) research aircraft.
Our analysis shows that the lidar and aircraft measurements agree, on
average to within 5 ppbv, the sum of their stated uncertainties of 3 and 2 ppbv, respectively.</p
New features in the phase diagram of TbMnO
The (H,T)-phase diagram of the multiferroic perovskite TbMnO was studied
by high-resolution thermal expansion and magnetostriction measurements. Below K, TbMnO shows
antiferromagnetic order, which changes at K where
simultaneously a spontaneous polarization develops. Sufficiently high
magnetic fields applied along or induce a polarization flop to .
We find that all of these transitions are strongly coupled to the lattice
parameters. Thus, our data allow for a precise determination of the phase
boundaries and also yield information about their uniaxial pressure
dependencies. The strongly hysteretic phase boundary to the ferroelectric phase
with is derived in detail. Contrary to previous reports, we find that
even in high magnetic fields there are no direct transitions from this phase to
the paraelectric phase. We also determine the various phase boundaries in the
low-temperature region related to complex reordering transitions of the Tb
moments.Comment: 17 pages including 9 figure
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Effect of petrochemical industrial emissions of reactive alkenes and NO\u3csub\u3ex\u3c/sub\u3e on tropospheric ozone formation in Houston, Texas
Petrochemical industrial facilities can emit large amounts of highly reactive hydrocarbons and NOx to the atmosphere; in the summertime, such colocated emissions are shown to consistently result in rapid and efficient ozone (O3) formation downwind. Airborne measurements show initial hydrocarbon reactivity in petrochemical source plumes in the Houston, TX, metropolitan area is primarily due to routine emissions of the alkenes propene and ethene. Reported emissions of these highly reactive compounds are substantially lower than emissions inferred from measurements in the plumes from these sources. Net O3 formation rates and yields per NOx molecule oxidized in these petrochemical industrial source plumes are substantially higher than rates and yields observed in urban or rural power plant plumes. These observations suggest that reductions in reactive alkene emissions from petrochemical industrial sources are required to effectively address the most extreme O3 exceedences in the Houston metropolitan area
Cement degradation in CO2 storage sites: a review on potential applications of nanomaterials
© 2018 The Author(s) Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) has been employed to reduce global warming, which is one of the critical environmental issues gained the attention of scientific and industrial communities worldwide. Once implemented successfully, CCS can store at least 5 billion tons of CO2per year as an effective and technologically safe method. However, there have been a few issues raised in recent years, indicating the potential leakages paths created during and after injection. One of the major issues might be the chemical interaction of supercritical CO2with the cement, which may lead to the partial or total loss of the cement sheath. There have been many approaches presented to improve the physical and mechanical properties of the cement against CO2attack such as changing the water-to-cement ratio, employing pozzolanic materials, and considering non-Portland cements. However, a limited success has been reported to the application of these approaches once implemented in a real-field condition. To date, only a few studies reported the application of nanoparticles as sophisticated additives which can reinforce oil well cements. This paper provides a review on the possible application of nanomaterials in the cement industry where physical and mechanical characteristics of the cement can be modified to have a better resistance against corrosive environments such as CO2storage sites. The results obtained indicated that adding 0.5 wt% of Carbon NanoTubes (CNTs) and NanoGlass Flakes (NGFs) can reinforce the thermal stability and coating characteristics of the cement which are required to increase the chance of survival in a CO2sequestrated site. Nanosilica can also be a good choice and added to the cement by as much as 3.0 wt% to improve pozzolanic reactivity and thermal stability as per the reports of recent studies
TOLNet validation of satellite ozone profiles in the troposphere: impact of retrieval wavelengths
The Tropospheric Ozone Lidar Network (TOLNet) was used to validate retrievals of ozone (O3) profiles in the troposphere from the TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) ultraviolet (UV), Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS) infrared (IR), and a combined UV + IR wavelength retrieval from TROPOMI/CrIS. Observations from six separate ground-based lidar systems and various locations of ozonesondes distributed throughout North America and in the Netherlands were used to quantify systematic bias and random errors for each satellite retrieval. Furthermore, TOLNet data were used to intercompare idealized UV, IR, and UV + IR convolved lidar profiles of O3 in the troposphere during case studies representative of high-O3 events. This study shows that the improved sensitivity and vertical resolution in UV + IR retrievals in the middle- and upper-troposphere resulted in tropospheric degree of freedom (DOF) values ∼ 33 % higher compared to UV- and IR-only retrievals. The increased DOFs in the UV + IR retrievals allowed for improved reproduction of mid- and upper-tropospheric O3 enhancements and, to a lesser degree, near-surface pollution enhancements compared to single-wavelength satellite products.
The validation of O3 profiles in the troposphere retrieved with the UV-only, IR-only, and UV + IR Tikhonov regularised Ozone Profile retrievAl with SCIATRAN (TOPAS) algorithm developed at the Institute for Environmental Physics, University of Bremen, demonstrated the utility of using TOLNet as a satellite evaluation data set. TOPAS UV-only, IR-only, and UV + IR wavelength retrievals had systematic biases, quantified with normalized mean bias, throughout the troposphere of 11.2 ppb (22.1 %), −1.7 ppb (−0.3 %), and 3.5 ppb (7.8 %), respectively, which meet the tropospheric systematic bias requirements defined by the science teams for the TROPOMI and CrIS sensors. The primary drivers of systematic bias were determined to be solar zenith angle, surface albedo, and cloud fraction. Random errors, representative of uncertainty in the retrievals and quantified by root mean squared errors (RMSEs), were large for all three retrievals, with UV-only, IR-only, and UV + IR wavelength retrievals having RMSEs throughout the troposphere of 17.4 ppb (19.8 % of mean tropospheric column values), 10.5 ppb (12.6 % of mean tropospheric column values), and 14.0 ppb (14.6 % of mean tropospheric column values), respectively. TOPAS UV-only profiles did not meet the uncertainty requirements defined for TROPOMI for the troposphere; however, CrIS IR-only retrievals did meet the uncertainty requirements defined by this mission. The larger random errors reflect the challenge of retrieving daily O3 profiles due to the limited sensitivity and vertical resolution of these retrievals in the troposphere. Tropospheric systematic biases and random error were lower in IR-only and combined UV + IR retrievals compared to UV-only products due to the increased sensitivity in the troposphere allowing the retrievals to deviate further from the a priori profiles. Observations from TOLNet demonstrated that the performance of the three satellite products varied by season and altitude in the troposphere. TOLNet was shown to result in similar validation statistics compared to ozonesonde data, which are a commonly used satellite evaluation data source, demonstrating that TOLNet is a sufficient source of satellite O3 profile validation data in the troposphere, which is critical as this data source is the primary product identified for the tropospheric O3 validation of the recently launched Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) mission.</p
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