ICEER2016 - a Review & ICEER2017 - a Preview

This volume of Energy Procedia serves as proceedings of ICEER2016, the 3rd International Conference on Energy and Environment Research, 7-9 September 2016, Barcelona, Spain. The ICEER2016 conference was organized by BarcelonaTECH (Universitat Poltècnica de Catalunya), assisted by University Research Institute for Sustainability Science and Technology, ISEP (School of Engineering of Polytechnic of Porto), Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani – Dubai Campus, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Azcapotzalco (UAM), México, Prairie View A&M University, USA, KIT (Korea National Institute of Technology) and it belongs to the Energy and Environment Research series of conferences from the SCIence and Engineering Institute (SCIEI).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Engineering education towards sustainability

The traditional systems have been studied in an isolated mode, seek to respond to a specific need and deal with a restricted set of variables. The targets established for energy efficient systems and energy sustainability imply that new systems are more comprehensive and combine the various individual systems. This new topology requires a new kind of engineering professionals provided with new skills. New engineering professionals need to have not only a set of deep capabilities in a specific area, but also more comprehensive proficiencies that allow them to understand how to integrate their particular system into a wider functional system. This paper addresses some challenges and issues posed to Higher Education institutions and to engineering professionals of the future.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Sustainability in Buildings - A Teaching Approach

Energy consumption in buildings is responsible for an important share of global consumed energy. The current electric energy paradigm carries important consequences both at economic and environmental levels. The so called Zero Energy Buildings’ strategy provides some guidelines in order to achieve better results in buildings energy demand. This scenario is a highly multidisciplinary engineering issue, and poses several challenges at the higher education level, that is taught in separate areas. This paper presents some higher education teaching limitations to address new technological challenges in new buildings design.N/

Catalytic bi-reforming of methane for carbon dioxide ennoblement

New processes that may reduce the net carbon emissions and contribute to a more circular economy are needed. Bi-reforming of methane (BRM) is a promising method for syngas production, with a hydrogen-to-carbon monoxide ratio of two in the reaction products, relevant for example when the purpose is methanol synthesis. In this work, reaction studies were carried out over a nickel-based catalyst varying the temperature (798-1123 K). Three main temperature zones have been identified; a low temperature zone where the conversion of carbon dioxide is almost null, a middle temperature range where steam reforming of methane (SRM) is dominant while the conversion of carbon dioxide via dry reforming of methane (DRM) is low, and finally a high temperature range where DRM becomes more significant. The results show that syngas can be successfully produced using this process. For the range of operating conditions studied, the carbon dioxide and methane conversions increase with temperature, reaching 40% and 100%, respectively at the largest temperature studied. However, the production of syngas in a molar ratio of 1:2 for CO-to-H-2 requires the use of high temperatures. Most probably the nickel agglomerates on top of the gamma-alumina support are responsible for the poor catalyst performance. (C) 2019 Published by Elsevier Ltd

Valorization of agro‐industrial residues: Bioprocessing of animal fats to reduce their acidity

Adding value to agro‐industrial residues is becoming increasingly important, satisfying needs to promote resources' use efficiency and a more sustainable and circular economy. This work performs a parametric and kinetic study of enzymatic esterification of lard and tallow with high acidity, obtained by the rendering of slaughter by‐products, allowing their use as a feed ingredient and increasing their market value. After an initial analysis of potential enzyme candidates, a Candida antarctica lipase B was selected as a biocatalyst for converting free fatty acids (FFA) to esters, using excess ethanol as the reagent. Results show that the fat acidity can be reduced by at least 67% in up to 3 h of reaction time at 45 °C, using the mass ratios of 3.25 ethanol/FFA and 0.0060 enzyme/fat. Kinetic modelling shows an irreversible second‐order rate law, function of FFA, and ethanol concentration better fitting the experimental results. Activation energy is 54.7 kJ/mol and pre-exponential factor is 4.6 × 106 L mol−1 min−1. (c) 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland

A multicultural approach to teach sustainability

Globalization is a tendency that covers all society perspectives in general, and the high education in particular. The main traditional objective of these institutions was to prepare domestic students with a set of skills. The research competition and universities rankings, as well as the need to reach other publics pushed them towards internationalization. The exchange of students across the UE is a well-known reality which success is largely due to cultural similarities. However, a set of issues raises in importance when students from different cultures are involved. We proposed an International Summer Course with a layout specifically designed to identify those questions. In our experience the class included Korean and Portuguese students in the same proportions to develop some work under the framework of sustainability, a specific theme chosen in order to foster consensus. Aiming at a higher level of internationalization and having in mind that students could gain from an intensive and multicultural experience ISEP organized its first Engineering for Sustainable Development (E4SD) Summer Course, in July 2014. This work reports some results from this experience, which included a Problem Based Learning (PBL) approach, and points new directions. In fact, PBL seemed to be a way of promoting integration and the inclusion of multiple cultures allowed the analysis of different perspectives which otherwise would not have been considered. On the other hand, all the students had an international experience, in a non native language, which has driven them out of their confort zon

Indoor air quality improvement using nature-based solutions: Design proposals to greener cities

Low indoor air quality is an increasingly important problem due to the spread of urbanization. Because people spend most of their time inside, poor indoor air quality causes serious human health issues, resulting in significant economic losses. In this work, the current state of affairs is presented and analyzed, focusing on the current problems and the available solutions to improve the quality of indoor air, and the use of nature-based solutions. These involve the cultivation of microalgae in closed photobioreactors. In these systems, photosynthetic organisms can capture CO2 and other pollutants generated in indoor environments, which they use to grow and develop biomass. Several possible layouts for the implementation of microalgae-based indoor air cleaning systems are presented, taking into account the systems that are currently available at a commercial scale. A critical analysis of the microalgae indoor purification systems is presented, highlighting their advantages and disadvantages, and suggesting potential improvements and future lines of research and development in the area. (c) 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland

SARS-CoV-2 introductions and early dynamics of the epidemic in Portugal

Genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in Portugal was rapidly implemented by the National Institute of Health in the early stages of the COVID-19 epidemic, in collaboration with more than 50 laboratories distributed nationwide. Methods By applying recent phylodynamic models that allow integration of individual-based travel history, we reconstructed and characterized the spatio-temporal dynamics of SARSCoV-2 introductions and early dissemination in Portugal. Results We detected at least 277 independent SARS-CoV-2 introductions, mostly from European countries (namely the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Italy, and Switzerland), which were consistent with the countries with the highest connectivity with Portugal. Although most introductions were estimated to have occurred during early March 2020, it is likely that SARS-CoV-2 was silently circulating in Portugal throughout February, before the first cases were confirmed. Conclusions Here we conclude that the earlier implementation of measures could have minimized the number of introductions and subsequent virus expansion in Portugal. This study lays the foundation for genomic epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2 in Portugal, and highlights the need for systematic and geographically-representative genomic surveillance.We gratefully acknowledge to Sara Hill and Nuno Faria (University of Oxford) and Joshua Quick and Nick Loman (University of Birmingham) for kindly providing us with the initial sets of Artic Network primers for NGS; Rafael Mamede (MRamirez team, IMM, Lisbon) for developing and sharing a bioinformatics script for sequence curation (https://github.com/rfm-targa/BioinfUtils); Philippe Lemey (KU Leuven) for providing guidance on the implementation of the phylodynamic models; Joshua L. Cherry (National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health) for providing guidance with the subsampling strategies; and all authors, originating and submitting laboratories who have contributed genome data on GISAID (https://www.gisaid.org/) on which part of this research is based. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the view of the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Health and Human Services, or the United States government. This study is co-funded by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia and Agência de Investigação Clínica e Inovação Biomédica (234_596874175) on behalf of the Research 4 COVID-19 call. Some infrastructural resources used in this study come from the GenomePT project (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-022184), supported by COMPETE 2020 - Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalisation (POCI), Lisboa Portugal Regional Operational Programme (Lisboa2020), Algarve Portugal Regional Operational Programme (CRESC Algarve2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), and by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio