Report on economic & environmental profile of new technology greenhouses at the three scenarios

The EUPHOROS project is co-funded by the European Commission, Directorate General for Research, within the 7th Framework Programme of RTD, Theme 2 – Biotechnology, Agriculture & Food, contract 211457. The views and opinions expressed in this Deliverable are purely those of the writers and may not in any circumstances be regarded as stating an official position of the European Commission. This Deliverable 5 Annex is the latest updated version in September 2011

Establishing a framework for dynamic risk management in 'intelligent' aero-engine control

The behaviour of control functions in safety critical software systems is typically bounded to prevent the occurrence of known system level hazards. These bounds are typically derived through safety analyses and can be implemented through the use of necessary design features. However, the unpredictability of real world problems can result in changes in the operating context that may invalidate the behavioural bounds themselves, for example, unexpected hazardous operating contexts as a result of failures or degradation. For highly complex problems it may be infeasible to determine the precise desired behavioural bounds of a function that addresses or minimises risk for hazardous operation cases prior to deployment. This paper presents an overview of the safety challenges associated with such a problem and how such problems might be addressed. A self-management framework is proposed that performs on-line risk management. The features of the framework are shown in context of employing intelligent adaptive controllers operating within complex and highly dynamic problem domains such as Gas-Turbine Aero Engine control. Safety assurance arguments enabled by the framework necessary for certification are also outlined

Environmental and economic profile of present greenhouse production systems in Europe. Annex

The EUPHOROS project is co-funded by the European Commission, Directorate General for Research, within the 7th Framework Programme of RTD, Theme 2 – Biotechnology, Agriculture & Food, contract 211457. The views and opinions expressed in this Deliverable are purely those of the writers and may not in any circumstances be regarded as stating an official position of the European Commission. This Deliverable 5 Annex is the latest updated version in September 2011

Carbon-encapsulated iron nanoparticles as reusable adsorbents for micropollutants removal from water

Adsorption represents the most plausible technology for micropollutants removal from water nowadays. Nevertheless, the regeneration of the saturated carbon materials is still an important challenge, being these solids in practice commonly disposed. This work aims at overcoming this issue by using innovative carbonencapsulated iron nanoparticles (CE-nFe). This material was synthesized by a low-cost and green method viz. hydrothermal carbonization (HTC), using olive mill wastewater as carbonaceous source. The solid was fully characterized by different techniques (magnetic properties, elemental analyses, N2-sorption isotherms, pHPZC, ICP, XRD and TEM). It showed a clear core-shell structure of around 40 nm in diameter. The core was mainly formed by zero-valent iron and the shell by graphitized carbon. Accordingly, it showed an essentially mesoporous structure, with a specific surface area of 169 m2 g−1 , and a clear hydrophobic character (pHPZC = 10). Its adsorption performance was investigated using three relevant micropollutants (diclofenac (DCF), sulfamethoxazole (SMX) and metronidazole (MNZ)). A very fast removal of the micropollutants was achieved (30 min at the most, with rate constants in the range of 0.11–0.41 g mg−1 min−1 ). The adsorption isotherms revealed the vertical packing of the adsorbate molecules onto the adsorbent active centers, being the data successfully described by the GAB model. The saturated adsorbents were effectively regenerated by heterogeneous Fenton oxidation, taking advantage of the iron core of CE-nFe and the opened mesoporous carbon shell. The regeneration efficiency increased with increasing the operating temperature (25–75 ◦C) and contact time (1–4 h), as well as the H2O2 dose up to 6 g L-1. The micropollutant nature affected the adsorbent regeneration yield in the order: SMX > DCF > MNZ, consistent with their reactivity towards Fenton oxidationThis research has been supported by the Spanish MINECO through the project CTM-2016-76454-R and by the CM through the project P2018/EMT-4341. M. Munoz and J. Nieto-Sandoval thank the Spanish MINECO for the Ramón y Cajal postdoctoral contract (RYC-2016-20648) and the FPI predoctoral grant (BES-2017-081346), respectivel

Critical review of technologies for the on-site treatment of hospital wastewater: From conventional to combined advanced processes

This review aims to assess different technologies for the on-site treatment of hospital wastewater (HWW) to remove pharmaceutical compounds (PhCs) as sustances of emerging concern at a bench, pilot, and full scales from 2014 to 2020. Moreover, a rough characterisation of hospital effluents is presented. The main detected PhCs are antibiotics and psychiatric drugs, with concentrations up to 1.1 mg/L. On the one hand, regarding the presented technologies, membrane bioreactors (MBRs) are a good alternative for treating HWW with PhCs removal values higher than 80% in removing analgesics, anti-inflammatories, cardiovascular drugs, and some antibiotics. Moreover, this system has been scaled up to the pilot plant scale. However, some target compounds are still present in the treated effluent, such as psychiatric and contrast media drugs and recalcitrant antibiotics (erythromycin and sulfamethoxazole). On the other hand, ozonation effectively removes antibiotics found in the HWW (>93%), and some studies are carried out at the pilot plant scale. Even though, some families, such as the X-ray contrast media, are recalcitrant to ozone. Other advanced oxidation processes (AOPs), such as Fenton-like or UV treatments, seem very effective for removing pharmaceuticals, Antibiotic Resistance Bacteria (ARBs) and Antibiotic Resistance Genes (ARGs). However, they are not implanted at pilot plant or full scale as they usually consider extra reactants such as ozone, iron, or UV-light, making the scale-up of the processes a challenging task to treat high-loading wastewater. Thus, several examples of biological wastewater treatment methods combined with AOPs have been proposed as the better strategy to treat HWW with high removal of PhCs (generally over 98%) and ARGs/ARBs (below the detection limit) and lower spending on reactants. However, it still requires further development and optimisation of the integrated processes.Comunidad de Madri

Energy-water-food nexus in the Spanish greenhouse tomato production

The nexus energy–water–food of the tomato greenhouse production in the Almeria region (Spain) has been studied following a Process Systems Analysis Method connecting the ecosystem services to the market demands with a holistic view based on Life Cycle Assessment. The management of the agri-food subsystem, the industrial subsystem and the urban subsystem plays an important role in the nexus of the E–W–F system, where transport and information technologies connect the three subsystems to the global markets. The local case study of the tomato production in Almeria (Spain) has been developed as an example of the food production under cropland restrictions, semiarid land. After study of the economic and social sustainability in time, the evolution of the ecosystem services supply is the main restriction of the system, where after the land use change in the region, water and energy supply play the mean role with a trade-off between the water quality degradation and the economic cost of the energy for water desalination. Water footprint, Carbon footprint and Chemicals footprint are useful indicators to the environmental sustainability assessment of local alternatives in the E–W–F system under study. As it is shown in the conclusions, the holistic view based on the process analysis method and the life cycle assessment methodology and indicators is an useful tool for decision support

Critical review of technologies for the on-site treatment of hospital wastewater: From conventional to combined advanced processes

In this work, a raw and low cost mineral, ilmenite (FeTiO3), has been tested for the first time as a photocatalyst paired with peroxymonosulfate (HSO5-; PMS) for the inactivation of Enterococcus faecalis as an alternative to conventional treatments to disinfect wastewater for reuse. The influence of some operational parameters such as reagent dosage, catalyst concentration, initial pH, or flow rate was also studied and optimized. After several tests, the scarce pure photoactivity under UV-A was remarked by ilmenite because of its high iron content, which favors photogenerated charge recombination. However, ilmenite activity was highly promoted when combined with low concentrations of PMS and UV-A light, reaching total inactivation of Enterococcus faecalis in 120 min. Quenching tests were performed using methanol, tert-butyl alcohol, furfuryl alcohol, and Cu(II) to assess the main reactive species involved in the disinfection process determining the critical role of both HO·and SO4·- radicals in the process. Finally, the influence of the water matrix was also evaluated by studying the effect of water hardness and the presence of nutrients on the system. Overall, the PMS/Ilmenite/UV-A system yielded promising results with a total removal of Enterococcus faecalis in 120 min. However, it also showed the need for further study and understanding of the disinfection mechanism to achieve the same level of performance in real wastewaterThe "Comunidad de Madrid" supported this research through REMTAVARES S2013/MAE-2716 and S2018/EMT-434

Evaluation of manure management systems in Europe

The gross value of the agricultural goods in 2014 amounted up to 370 billion Euros. Almost 50% of all agricultural production is provided by livestock farming.Postprint (published version