Experimental Research on the Treatment of Stormwater Contaminated by Disinfectants Using Recycled Materials-Hemp Fiber and Ceramzite.

Pollution caused by the use of disinfectants in public spaces is a relatively new form of environmental contamination. During the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020-2021, early research showed a sevenfold increase in the use of disinfectants to clean outdoor spaces and a corresponding increase in environmental pollution. Typically, after entering stormwater systems, disinfectants are carried to surface waters (e.g., rivers, seas and lakes) where they react with various elements to form harmful compounds. In the absence of data, it is not possible to determine accurate levels of pollution according to the latest scientific information. Our enquiry demonstrates that stormwater pollution indicators (pH, conductivity, turbidity and color intensity) change depending on the amounts of disinfectants present. Laboratory tests were conducted using hemp fiber and ceramzite, in which filtered stormwater samples contaminated with different amounts of disinfectants showed decreases in the amounts of active chlorine from 2.93 ppm to 1.0 ppm. Changes in pH levels, conductivity, turbidity and color intensity were monitored before and after filtration; pH indicators changed slightly (from 7.81 to 7.85), turbidity changes varied in the range of 0.070-0.145 NTU and the highest value of color intensity (1.932 AV) was obtained when 50 mL of disinfectant was added to the investigated sample water. This article presents the results of our research into the impact of disinfectants on stormwater. Further investigation is needed in order to determine the impacts of chemical substances on our water ecosystem.

Management of disposable surgical masks for tackling pandemic-generated pollution: Thermo-acoustic investigations and life cycle assessment of novel recycled building panels.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed people's habits, causing them to use large amounts of disposable items and exacerbating the already existing issue of pollution. One way to reduce the environmental impact of this shift in daily habits is to recycle these items, e.g. surgical masks that are the most common personal protective equipment against the virus, to produce panels for building applications. In this work, both the thermal and acoustical performance of such panels are evaluated using a small and a large scale investigation under real-world conditions. Small scale thermal tests are performed by means of the Hot Disk instrument while the acoustic investigations are performed by means of the impedance tube. Large scale tests are carried out in a reverberation chamber assessing both the heat flow passing through the wall and the acoustic absorption coefficient of the panels. Finally, the environmental impact of the innovative recycled panel is also investigated in a life cycle perspective. Overall, the material behavior scored well on these tests, suggesting that the proposed approach may be a good recycling method.

From Illegal Waste Dumps to Beneficial Resources Using Drone Technology and Advanced Data Analysis Tools: A Feasibility Study

In a resource-constrained world, there is ongoing concern over the exploitation and potential future shortage of Earth’s natural resources. In this paper, we present the results of two pilot studies in which we used drone technology with spatial mapping tools and environmental and economic analysis to map illegal waste sites. Besides the technical feasibility, we aimed at understanding the benefits, costs, and tradeoffs of extracting the materials stocked therein, transforming illegal waste sites into valuable resources. The innovation of our work is reflected in the integration of existing technologies for aerial mapping and economic\environmental assessment methodologies for promoting a local circular economy. The pilot results suggest that it is feasible to identify valuable materials left on the ground in the form of unattended, illegally disposed waste. Our initial national estimates for the illegal waste cleanup based on the pilot results suggest that the treatment cost in Israel can be reduced by 58 million USD and even reach zero, with the potential to generate up to 82.8 million USD profits. Finally, we link our results to the Sustainable Development Goals framework and suggest how mapping and implementing the recycling potential can promote achieving some of the goals. Our work provides missing data that the state, local authorities, contractors, and companies that monitor and manage waste and recycled raw materials may find useful.

Enhanced Robots as Tools for Assisting Agricultural Engineering Students’ Development

Inevitably, the rapid growth of the electronics industry and the wide availability of tailored programming tools and support are accelerating the digital transformation of the agricultural sector. The latter transformation seems to foster the hopes for tackling the depletion and degradation of natural resources and increasing productivity in order to cover the needs of Earth’s continuously growing population. Consequently, people getting involved with modern agriculture, from farmers to students, should become familiar with and be able to use and improve the innovative systems making the scene. At this point, the contribution of the STEM educational practices in demystifying new areas, especially in primary and secondary education, is remarkable and thus welcome, but things become quite uncertain when trying to discover efficient practices for higher education, and students of agricultural engineering are not an exception. Indeed, university students are not all newcomers to STEM and ask for real-world experiences that better prepare them for their professional careers. Trying to bridge the gap, this work highlights good practices during the various implementation stages of electric robotic ground vehicles that can serve realistic agricultural tasks. Several innovative parts, such as credit card-sized systems, AI-capable modules, smartphones, GPS, solar panels, and network transceivers are properly combined with electromechanical components and recycled materials to deliver technically and educationally meaningful results.

Use of dilatometer to screen refractory raw materials

Sudden shortage of a particular raw material due to freight disruptions, competitive market, and COVID restrictions have frequently forced the refractory industry to rapidly develop alternative formulations using available low‐cost materials. These alternative ingredients might cursorily appear to have similar total impurity content, but the presence of certain impurity combinations depending on the refractory type can produce more fluid liquid phase at high temperature, thereby drastically reducing hot strength. Undetected by the commonly used X‐ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis, the low‐cost material might differ in mineral‐phase content, whose phase transformations during firing might create excessive expansion producing warpage of the refractory along with a high porosity reducing strength and corrosion resistance. Finally, those cheap raw materials might have similar sieve analysis to that of the standard ingredient but might have much lower tapped density, which would introduce detrimental porosity into the resulting refractory. Hence, time‐consuming trials are often performed. Dilatometer studies on pressed or cast samples in a single test can identify reaction temperatures of spinel or mullite formation, which expand during firing, along with the amount of expansion and exact times at which firing needs to be done. It can also compare relative shrinkage due to liquid‐phase formation among impure raw materials like recycled grogs or low‐grade ores. Finally, dilatometric step scan is shown as a fast technique to prepare in‐house, low‐cost reactive spinel powder, which can also work for mullite.