Water-energy-food nexus and life cycle thinking: A new approach to environmental and nutritional assessment of potato chips

The water-energy-food (WEF) nexus has become a key concept to promote the cross-sectoral coordination toward sustainable development. In particular, understanding the interdependences of these pillars, as well as addressing a life cycle perspective, is essential when evaluating food production systems. This study explores the environmental impacts and nutritional quality of potato chips, addressing life cycle thinking and a WEF nexus approach. For this purpose, the combined application of life cycle assessment (LCA) and the Nutrient-Rich Food 9.3 (NRF9.3) index was considered to identify the main environmental hotspots and advanced opportunities. The results indicated a major contribution of the cultivation stage on water use, whereas the processing accounted for most of the impacts in energy-related indicators and eutrophication potentials. Improvement opportunities reside in the joint application of drip irrigation, allowing to achieve important water savings, as well as the use of natural gas or pellets instead of diesel, which constitute cleaner energy sources. On the other hand, a poor nutritional density of potato chips became evident from the quantification of the NRF9.3, which can be significantly improved if potatoes undergo a roasted process instead of fryingThis research was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through the KAIROS-BIOCIR project (PID2019-104925RB) (AEO/FEDER, UE)

Looking for answers to food loss and waste management in Spain from a holistic nutritional and economic approach

The generation of food loss and waste (FLW) is a global problem for worldwide politics. About one-third of the food produced ends up in the rubbish before it is consumed. For this reason, it is essential to design and implement new strategies along the food supply chain (FSC) with the aim of reducing this FLW at each stage. However, not only mass quantification should be considered, but also economic and nutritional performance. The novelty of this study is the definition of a methodology based on the “distance to target” approach by means of multi-objective optimization to evaluate the economic and nutritional cost produced by this FLW. This methodology was applied to the Spanish food basket in 2015. The results revealed that 80% of the total FLW generated in economic and nutritional terms is concentrated in the agricultural production (53.3%) and consumption (26.3%) stages. In the first stages of the FSC, fruits (Dn eq.= 0.7), cereals (Dn eq.= 0.61), and vegetables (Dn eq.= 0.57) were the furthest from the distance target due to the great amount of FLW generated. Moreover, according to the normalized weighted distances obtained from the minimization of economic and nutritional cost, pulses (Dn eq. = 0.05–0.03) and eggs (Dn eq. = 0.02) were the more efficient food categories. The methodology described in this study proposes a single index to quantify the economic and nutritional cost of different food categories to facilitate the decision-making process. This index makes possible the definition of reduction strategies focused on specific food categories and depending on the FSC stage.This research was funded by Spanish Ministry of Science and Competitiveness, grant number CERES-PROCON Project CTM2016-76176 (AEI/FEDER, UE) and KAIROS-BIOCIR Project PID2019-104925RB (AEO/FEDER, UE)

Importance of the spectral emissivity measurements at working temperature to determine the efficiency of a solar selective coating

The total emissivity of the absorbing surfaces is a critical parameter in the calculation of the radiative thermal losses in solar thermal collectors. This is because the radiative heat losses have a significant economic impact on the final cost of the electricity produced in a solar thermal plant. This paper demonstrates the need to calculate the total emissivity from spectral emissivity measurements at the working temperature of the solar thermal collector, instead of using extrapolated values from spectral emissivities measured at room temperature. Usual uncertainties produced by the estimation of the total emissivity, in which its temperature dependence is only introduced by the Planck function, are analyzed

Importance of the spectral emissivity measurements at working temperature to determine the efficiency of a solar selective coating

The total emissivity of the absorbing surfaces is a critical parameter in the calculation of the radiative thermal losses in solar thermal collectors. This is because the radiative heat losses have a significant economic impact on the final cost of the electricity produced in a solar thermal plant. This paper demonstrates the need to calculate the total emissivity from spectral emissivity measurements at the working temperature of the solar thermal collector, instead of using extrapolated values from spectral emissivities measured at room temperature. Usual uncertainties produced by the estimation of the total emissivity, in which its temperature dependence is only introduced by the Planck function, are analyzed

Importance of the spectral emissivity measurements at working temperature to determine the efficiency of a solar selective coating

The total emissivity of the absorbing surfaces is a critical parameter in the calculation of the radiative thermal losses in solar thermal collectors. This is because the radiative heat losses have a significant economic impact on the final cost of the electricity produced in a solar thermal plant. This paper demonstrates the need to calculate the total emissivity from spectral emissivity measurements at the working temperature of the solar thermal collector, instead of using extrapolated values from spectral emissivities measured at room temperature. Usual uncertainties produced by the estimation of the total emissivity, in which its temperature dependence is only introduced by the Planck function, are analyzed.This work has been carried out with the financial support of the ETORTEK and SAIOTEK 2013 program (Project numbers S-PC08UN07 and S-PE13UN123 respectively) of the Basque Government in collaboration with CIC-Energigune. T. Echániz acknowledges the Basque Government their support through a Ph.D. fellowship

First spectral emissivity study of a solar selective coating in the 150–600 1C temperature range

A complete experimental study of temperature dependence of the total spectral emissivity has been performed, for the first time, for absorber–reflector selective coatings used in concentrated solar power (CSP) systems for energy harvesting. The coating consist of double cermet layers of silicon oxide with different amounts of molybdenum over a silver infrared mirror layer. The experimental measurements were carried out by a high accurate radiometer (HAIRL) with controlled atmosphere in the mid-infrared and for temperatures between 150 and 600 1C. The spectral emissivity is nearly constant in this temperature range. Therefore, the temperature dependence of the total emissivity is given by Planck function. These results were compared with those obtained with the usual calculus using room temperature reflectance spectrum. Finally, the performance of the coating was analyzed by comparison of coated respect to non-coated stainless steel.European Commission Project HITECO FP7-ENERGY-2010-1Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación CSD2008-00023Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación RyC2007-002

Impact of hip fracture on health-related quality of life and activities of daily living: the SPARE-HIP prospective cohort study

There is a scarcity of prospectively collected data on functional and patient-reported outcomes following hip fracture. We therefore aimed to measure health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and activities of daily living activities (ADL) before, during index admission for a hip/proximal femur fracture, and at 1 and 4 months later