The Infona portal uses cookies, i.e. strings of text saved by a browser on the user's device. The portal can access those files and use them to remember the user's data, such as their chosen settings (screen view, interface language, etc.), or their login data. By using the Infona portal the user accepts automatic saving and using this information for portal operation purposes. More information on the subject can be found in the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. By closing this window the user confirms that they have read the information on cookie usage, and they accept the privacy policy and the way cookies are used by the portal. You can change the cookie settings in your browser.
In traditional process design, engineers aim to use man-made technology to solve practical problems. However, the resulting designs are often directly or indirectly dependent on ecosystem goods and services and this is often ignored. Neglecting these invaluable services has led to unsustainable practices through overexploitation of ecosystems. In addition, narrowly focusing on technological solutions...
The ecologically based life cycle assessment (Eco- LCA) tool has been developed to aid for quick implementation of the Eco-LCA methodology. Eco-LCA is a methodology which accounts for the ecosystems goods and services consumption in LCA of economic goods and products. Identification of the current trend of declining ecosystem services by the millennium ecosystem assessment (MEA) has emphasized the...
The Millenium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) has highlighted the fast depletion of ecosystem services over the past 50 years and has identified their crucial role in human well-being. This emphasizes the need of accounting for ecosystem goods and services in life cycle of products and processes. Despite the availability of numerous Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) techniques, most methods only account for...
In this paper we address the problem of taking the general notion of sustainability as reported in the Brundtland Report and later in Arrow et al approach and interpreting it from a thermodynamics point of view, with a goal of developing operational principles of sustainability in terms of physical principles that complement economic views.
Several recent events in the U.S. have highlighted the criticality and vulnerability of infrastructure systems to sudden shocks such as natural disasters, terrorist attacks, and food shortages. Proper understanding of such disruptive scenarios and their impact using holistic and integrated systems modeling techniques is crucial for effective resource allocation and disaster management. An input-output...
The methods of energy, exergy, and life cycle analysis are applied to a new nano-manufacturing process producing 40 nm titanium dioxide particles. The use of identical boundaries for each analysis allows for direct comparison of the results from each method. It was found that the thermodynamic methods identify spray hydrolysis as a significant sink in the process and life cycle analysis shows it to...
Research into the holistic evaluation of emerging nanotechnologies using systems analysis is pivotal for guiding their safe and sustainable development. This work presents the first energetic life cycle assessment of polymer nanocomposites (PNCs) that evaluates both thermoplastic and thermoset resins. Both simple carbon nanofiber (CNF) and carbon nanofiber-glass fiber (CNF-GF) hybrid nanocomposites...
Life cycle assessment is a popular approach for evaluating environmental impact of technologies. However, it is often difficult to apply, especially to emerging technologies due to the difficulty of finding accurate output-side emissions and impact data. Usually, input-side data are more readily available, even for emerging technologies, and may provide a reasonable proxy for predicting the environmental...
Life cycle assessment of nanotechnology has been suggested to evaluate claims about the potential benefits of this emerging technology. This paper presents one of the first LCAs and life cycle energy analysis of vapor grown carbon nanofibers (CNF) synthesis. Life cycle inventory data is compiled with data reported in the open literature. CNFs are compared with traditional materials on an equal mass...
Some of the outstanding challenges faced by traditional LCA include the following. LCA is mainly an "output side" method due to its focus on emissions and their impact, but such data are often difficult to find, particularly for emerging technologies. Furthermore, although an important goal of LCA is to evaluate the environmental sustainability of technological alternatives, the very ecosystem...
Data from most industrial processes contain contributions at multiple scales in time and frequency. In contrast, most existing methods for fault detection are best for detecting events at only one scale. This paper provides experimental validation and insight into a new method of process fault detection based on the integration of multiscale signal representation and scale-specific clustering-based...
Set the date range to filter the displayed results. You can set a starting date, ending date or both. You can enter the dates manually or choose them from the calendar.