Climate change is a phenomenon which has been scientifically observed for several decades, but it was not until the 1980´s that the term became widely popular and it has been growing ever since. Nowadays, not a week goes by without a new alarming headline appears, warning of record temperatures, decreasing rainfall, and the more frequent and damaging natural disasters.
Against this backdrop, mass media and public awareness of climate change has increased and, consequently, the pressure on governments and companies to establish more effective policies. Thus, climate and sustainability policies are created as actions and measures adopted by companies and policy-makers to face the climate change challenges and foster a sustainable future.
Although it was in 1972 when the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) was created at the 1st United Nations Conference on the Environment, concern for environmental security is not a recent topic, but it is estimated that as early as 1750 b.C the Mesopotamian Hammurabi Code established penalties for those who damage the nature.
From then until today, climatic science has changed a lot and, currently, the Conference of the Parties (COP) are held annually. They are summits held by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in which the 197 member parties reach a consensus on climate measures for the coming years. Out of the 27 COPs that have been held, the most relevant have undoubtedly been COP3 or the Kyoto Protocol and COP21 or the Paris Agreement.
Climate policies are mainly focused on cutting Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, which are the major drivers of global warming. To achieve this goal, governments promote renewable energy sources, improved energy efficiency as well as independence from fossil fuel in the main economic sectors (e.g. transport, buildings and industry).
Climate policies ofthen have a specific objective when they are implemented, but they might sometimes generate unexpected effects, both positive (co-benefits) and negative (trade-offs). These co-benefits may not only be reflected in the environmental situation, but can also generate economic and even social benefits.
This interrelationship among economy, society and environment eas not taken into account until the emergence sustainability concept. Sustainability policies focus on promoting the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are a total of 17 specific targets that address global challenges in the three basic pillars: environmental protection, social development and economic growth.
Though the application of climate measures in the most “traditional” sectors is essential to reduce our environmental impact, both policy-makers and the society have realised that a deeper redesign of our daily habits is needed. As a result, new regulations are continuously promoted in order to shift consumption trends and even to implement new approaches to educate future generations.
Nevertheless, all that glitters in not gold and it should be borne in mind that sustainability and climate policy implementation might be a complex process that requires a careful planning and assessment of the expected effects. Therefore, how can policy-makers be sure to establish a measure if there is a possibility of further damage? This is where “Integrated Assessment Models” (IAMs) are introduced.
IAMs are analytical tools for assessing and estimating the impacts of diverse climate policies in various areas such as the economy, the environment or the social awareness, by selecting which sectors and regions to focus on. With these models, policies can make scientifically supported decisions to address climate change or they can use them to justify previous measures.
The usefulness of IAMs is immense as long as they are well-used, but if the right optimal conditions are not met, they can become simply incomplete representations of the future. The correct functioning of these models requires the effective involvement of politicians and other stakeholders in the IAM development stage, as well as the correct definition of the policy to be modelled (what is the issue to be addressed and the objective of its implementation, what is its spatial and temporal resolution, etc.). Once these conditions have been met, it is essential to ensure that the chosen policy and model are compatible, as not all IAMs have enough capacity to forecast the impact of such a measure, either because it does not include the sector of application, because the geographical location cannot be specified, or because the temporal horizon is too long to be considered by the IAM. Currently, the efforts are focused on creating IAMs with greater diversity and capacity to implement policies that are not only related to the economy, but also to social and environmental factors.
At CARTIF we have been actively involved in IAMs for a long time and, in fact, together with our colleagues at UVA, we have developed an IAM called WILLIAM. We are also involved in several European projects, such as IAM COMPACT or NEVERMORE, which aimed at improving the assessment, transparency and cosistency of models.
In this post, I would like to talk about devices capable of acquiring images in the Terahertz spectral range, an emergingtechnology with great potential for implementation in industry, especially in the agri-food sector.
Currrently, machine vision systems used in industry work with different ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum, such as visible light, infrared, ultraviolet, among others, which are not able to pass through matter. Therefore, these technologies can only examine the surface characterisitcs of a product or packaging, but cannot provide information from the inside.
In contrast, there are other technologies that do allow us to examine certain properties inside matter, such as metal detectors, magnetic resonance imaging, ultrasound and X-rays. Metal detectors are only capable of detecting the presence of metals. Magnetic resonance equipment is expensive and large, mainly used in medicine, and its integration at industrial level is practically unfeasible. Ultrasound equipment requires contact, requires some skill in its application and is difficult to interpret, so it is not feasible in the industrial sector. Finally, X-rays are a very dangerous ionising radiation, which implies a great effort in protective coatings and an exhaustive control of the radiation dose. Although they can pass through matter, X-rays can only provide information about the different parts of a product that absorb radiation in this range of the electromagnetic spectrum.
From this point of view, we are faced with a very important challenge, to investigate the potential of new technologies with the capacity to inspect, safely and without contact, the inside of products and packaging, obtaining relevant information on the internal characteristics, such as quality, condition, presence or absence of elements inside, homogeneity,etc.
Looking at the options, the solution may lie in promoting the integration in industry of new technologies that work in non-ionising spectral ranges with the ability to penetrate matter, such as the terahertz/near-microwave spectral range.
First radiological image in histroy. The hand of Röntgen´s wife
In 1985, Professor Röntgen took the first radiological image in history, his wife´s hand. 127 years have passed and research is still going on. In 1995, the first image in the Terhaertz range was captures, son only 27 years have passed since then. This shows the degree of maturity of Terahertz technology, still in its early stages of research. This radiation is not new, we know it is there, but today it is very difficult to generate and detect it. The main research work has focused on improving the way this radiation is emitted and captured in a coherent way, using equipment developed in the laboratory.
In recent years things have changed, new optical sensors and new terahertz sources with a very high industrialisation capcity have been obtained, which opens the doors of industry to this technology. Now there is still a very important task of research to see the scope of this technology in the different areas of industry.
CARTIF is committed to this technology and is currently working on the development of the industrial research project AGROVIS, “Intelligent VISual Computing for products/processes in the AGRI-food sector“, a project funded by the Junta de Castilla y León, framed in the field of computer vision (digital enabler of industry 4.0) associated with the agri-food sector, where one of the main objectives is to explore the different possibilities for automatically inspecting the interior of agri-food products safely.
I think most people are familiar, in one way or another, with the characteristics of the chemical elements we are going to talk about in this post: nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P). Nitrogen in its gaseous from (N2) is part of the composition of atmospherica air or we even know it in another of its typical forms, ammonia (NH3), either as a gas or as a liquid solution (in this case as ammonium NH4 ). Phosphorus, on the other hand, is involved in vital functions in living organisms, as well as being one fo the main components of RNA and DNA molecules and is used to store and transport energy in the form of adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Well, today in this post we are going to go deeper into why these two elements are also important for other issues related to human beings and their development, we will explain the importance of nitrogen (N) and (P) as agronomic nutrients and how they are related to the concept of Circular Economy (a concept that has been very topical in recent years). Therefore, from now on, when we talk about nutrients in this post, it will always be focused from an agronomic point of view and nto from a human food point of view. Let´s start!
Both nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P), together with potassium (K), form the group of agronomic macronutrients, which are the three main macroelements that plants or crops need to incorporate for their growth. Thus, in most cases, the fertilisers that are synthesises, and used nowadays in agriculture have an important composition of these elements (we usually talk about the NPK content in these products).
The first uestion to ask is how are these fertilisers synthesisesd?
Almost all of the N used in the formulation of fertilisers is obtained from the synthesis of ammonia, the classic procedure for obtaining ammonia being the Haber-Bosch process. Subsequently, the ammonia obtained by the Haber-Bosch process is oxidised to give rise to nitric acid (HNO3), from which the main mineral fertilisers can be obtained, synthesised from ammonium nitrate [(NH4)NO3]. The other main source of N for fertilisers synthesis is urea [(NH2)2CO]. As far as phosphorus is concerned, the main raw materials for its use in fertilisers is apatite, which is a set of minerals obtained through the extraction of the mineral phosphate rock. Therefore, the first thing we can realise is that, in both cases, the origin of N and O for obtaining traditional fertilisers is a non-renewable origin.
In addition to this, there is another factor of great importance, namely the increase in the world´s population. According to United Nations (UN) forecasts, the world population will reach 8.6 billion in 2030 and 9.8 billion in 2050. It is clear that these facts will lead to a significant increase in pressure from the food industry, which will be forced to increase its production, leading to more intensive agricultural practices and therefore an increase in land use and consumption of water, energy and traditional non-renewable fertilisers. Another worrying fact abut this scenario is that the countries of the European Union (EU) are tremendously dependent on imports of these compounds that act as raw materials fot fertilisers. To give you an idea, the EU imports around 30% of the N, more than 60% of the P and 70% of the K of the ttal nutrients consumed as fertilisers products in its countries. This issue is even more dramatic in the case of P, as five countries worldwide hold 90% of the world´s reserves (China, Morocco, South Africa, the United States and the Jordan region). This has led the EU to classify P as a Critical Raw Material (COM(2017)490), as it is crucial for the EU´s own growth, competitiveness and especially for a sustainable food industry.
Against this backdrop, it is clear that the search for and introduction of alternative and renewable soruces of N and P, as well as novel technologies for the production of sustainable fertiliser products, is necessary.
And this is where the Circular Economy comes into play, on the one hand, and the concept of nutrient recovery on the ohter. Nutrient recovery is one of the main lines of research that we have been developing in recent years within the Circular Economy area of the CARTIF Technology Centre. Nutrient recovery consists of the development of methodologies, techniques and technologies that make it possible to obtain the N and P they contain from sustainable raw materials and that these elements are in a convenient and effective form for their subsequent use in the synthesis of bioproducts or sustainable fertilisers that can replace traditional mineral fertilisers or, failing that, increase the renewable component in the synthesis of the latter. It is important to highlight that, although nutrient recovery is mainly focused on the recvery of N and P, the recovery of ther agronomic macro and micronutrients, such as K, magnesium (Mg), calcium (Ca) ,etc., can also be achieved.
So what raw materials or sources of renewable origin can we use for nutrient recovery?
Nutrient recovery mainly focuses on two groups: agricultural and livestock waste and wastewater. By agricultural and livestock waste we mean any waste generated directly by agricultural or livestock activity (manure, slurry,etc.), as well as wastewater (both urban and industrial). In addition, and related to the above, biological waste or by-products obtained in the treatment of such waste could also be used in the recovery of nutrients (a clear example would be the digestate obtained from the treatment of such waste by anaerobic management of the sludge obtained in wastewater ttreatment processes in Wastewater Treatment Plants (WWTPs),etc.).
An important aspect to highlight is that nutrient recovery technologies depend to a large extent on the characteristics of the raw material we use to recvoer N and P and how this raw material is presented (in solid or liquid state). Thus, the simplest methods of nutrient recovery are the direct use as fertilisers of solid wastes or by-products such as activated sludge or manures and digestate or the composting of these. However, logistical aspects (cost of transport and management of the waste, which often contains high moisture) can make the process unfeasible. At the same time, direct application of the waste does not provide effective fertilisation and can lead to overfertilisation phenomena that can trigger eutrophication phenomena (due to the accumulation of N and P present in the soil that has not been assimilated by the crop and can subsequently be washed away by rain or run off and finally deposited in aquifers and bodies of water), with the consequent environmental damage. In additionm the residues may contain significant cmounts of potentially hazardous contaminants, which need to be removed prior to their use as fertilisers. For this reason, waste treatment technologies for N and O recovery are becoming increasingly popular. There are different technologies to recover N and P from liquid wastes, such as biological treatments, stripping, crystallisation, membrane filtration, thermochemical methods (pyrolysis and gasification) or physical treatments (concentration, drying,etc.).
But as all this is best understood with an example, we will try to explain one of the processes in which we have investigated in CARTIF some of our projects.
It is the recovery of nutrients from crystallisation. Crystallisation is a separation operation frequently used in Chemical Engineering, thanks to which purification of fluids is produced through the formation of solids, taking into account the solubility of the products that are of interest for their separation. Thus, crystallisation can be used to recover N and P from wastewater or liquid agricultural and livestock waste (liquid phase of digestate and manuse or slurry) in the form of struvite.
But, wait a minute, let´s take it one step at a time, what is struvite?
Struvite
Struvite is a salt (mineral orthiphosphate) containing magnesium, ammonium and phosphate in equal molar concentrations, specifically, struvite in the form of magnesium ammonium phosphate hexahydrate has the following molecular formula MgNH4PO4-6H20. Struvite crystallisation occurs easily when the ideal conditions are met (presence of a significant Mg, N and P contract, pH,etc.). In fact, struvite gained public attention in the 1960s as a result of the clogging of pipes in WWTPs, in which it crystallised spontaneously.
And now, we may think, okay, we know what struvite is, but how is it obtained?
The waste to be used as a raw material to extract N and P (normally wastewater or digestate obtained from the anaerobic digestion of waste such as pig slurry) is simply introduced into a crystallisation reactor and a certain amount of magnesium is added (normally in the form of MgCI2 or MgO) and depending on the pH of the reaction mixture, a base (NaOH) can be added to raise the pH (8-9). Once all the components are in the reactor, agitation (either mechanical or by aeration) is applied.
The Mg comes into contact with the N and P of the raw material and little by little the struvite crystals grow, according to the following chemical reaction:
After approximately one hour of reaction, most of the P contained in the raw material (and an equivalent amount of N and Mg) is recovered in the form of a whitish solid crystal, struvite. This solid has very good properties for use as a fertiliser, as struvite has a high concentration of P and, due to its physical characteristics (low solubility), the product can be used as a slow-release fertiliser, i.e., unlike traditional fertilisers, struvite releases nutrients according to the needs of the plant and its stage of growth, making it a more effective fertiliser and avoiding eutrophication and similar phenomena.
There are several struvite crystallisation technologies on the market (with different configurations, reactor types, morphologies,etc.), most of them focused on obtaining struvite from wastewater, however, in CARTIF we have developed a 50L pilot crystallisation reactor, trying to solve the technical impediments presented by other technologies. This crystalliser consists of a fluidised bed reactor,i.e. the agitation of the reaction mixture is achieved in suspension, facilitation their interaction and favouring the formation and growth of the crystals. The struvite crystalliation technology we have developed has been tested in several projects in which we have participated, such as Nutri2Cycle and Nutriman (both European projects of the Horizon2020 programme), with very promising results in the crystallisation process (achieving P recovery yields of voer 90%) and good agronomic performance of the final product obtained (struvite).
Nutrient recovery process at the demonstrator on Ireland of NUTRI2CYCLE project.
Therefore, as we have seen, thanks to nutrient recovery technologies we have developed sustainable processes in which we recover waste (wastewater, digestate,etc.) following the principles of the Circular Economy and we obtain a biofertiliser of renewable origin with good agronomic performance and with characteristics that are not present in traditional fertilisers of non-renewable mineral origin (slow release). Therefore, struvite would be a good candidate to replace or reduce the use of non-renewable fertilisers.
Currently in the Circular Economy Area of CARTIF, we continue working on the development of this line of research and we are currently coordinating the WalNUT project (another European project of the Horizon2020 programme), in which together with 13 other partners from several European countries we are developing new technologies for the recovery of nutrients from wastewater (both urban and industrial). Specifically, in the case of CARTIF, we are working on a technology for N and P recovery through the cultivation of microalgae and on another technology in which nutrients are recovered through bioelectrochemical processes, i.e. Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs).
But if you like, we´ll leave that topic for another future blog post ?
Decarbonisation of the industrial sector is currently is at the heart of the European agenda, as it seeks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and achieve agreed climate targets. The European Union aims to be climate neutral by 2050; that is to say, it has set itself the goal of having an economy with zero net greenhouse gas emissions. According to Eurostat, the industrial sector accounts for approximately 20% of total greenhouse gas emissions in Europe. Action in this area is therefore crucial in the fight against climate change.
An increase in the energy efficiency of industry in Europe is essential to reach the climate targets mentioned above and one effective way to address this is the utilisation and revalorisation of waste heat produced in industrial processes. This can be achieved through high-temperature heat pumps, which operate without electricity consumption and use waste heat to produce energy-intensive thermal energy and for industrial processes. The integration of these technologies could potentially cover 15.3% of the thermal demand of industrial processes. To learn more about heat pumps I invite you to visit the following article on our blog where you will find a very encouraging perspective on these technologies.
Furthermore, the potential integration of renewable energies is essential for change and these technologies can work in a complementary way with renewable energy sources such as solar thermal energy.
CARTIF is part of the PUSH2HEATproject consortium, a research and development project in the field of industrial decarbonisation. It´s a project funded through the Horizon Europe research and innovation programme that aims to overcome the barriers to the deployment of high temperature heat pump technologies for a better use of heat in the industrial sector. The market for such technologies is currently limited, but with the creation and implementstion of appropiate exploitation roadmaps and business models, very promising figures can be achieved on the road to emission reductions in the energy sector. Based on an estimated annual process heat demand of 298TWh between 90 and 160ºC that could potentially be covered by heat pump technologies and assuming a COP of 4 for the heat pump, 45Mt of CO2eq emissions could be avoided by switching from gas boilers to these electrically driven technologies. This corresponds to approximately 8.3% of the overall UE27 greenhouse gas emission reduction target from 2020 to 20230.
PUSH2HEAT, with a duration of 48 months, will bring together experts from different fields to drive the market and address existing technical, economic and regulatory barriers to waste heat recovery through large scale demonstration of heat-enhancing technologies in various industrial contexts with supply temperatures between 90 and 160ºC.
CARTIF is delighted to work with a consortium that is motivated to achieve satisfactory results to the challenges posed in the project and to continue with the necessary energy transition for a more sustainable future at the industrial sector.
If you want to keep up to date with the process, stay tuned for the results!
A wood lamp emits ultraviolet (UV) light and is a diagnostic tool used in dermatology to determine whether a person has a fungal or bacterial pathology on the sking or scalp. If so, the area illuminated by the wood lamp will fluoresce, becoming apparent in different colours associated with different pathologies. Perhaps you have ever undergone this test. The doctor will have told you to close your eyes to protect your vision and the light in the room where you are he will have turned off to highlight the fluorescence. Among other possibilities, if it turned out light blue means that you have normal and healthy sking; yellow is oily skin with acne; brown is for pigmentation and blackheads; and if white spots appear, drink more water, because you have dehydrated skin.
But surely you had not stopped to think that his technique is also applicable to diagnose similar pathologies in movable cultural heritage assets made of organic materials, for example wood or resin sculptures, or paintings covered with varnishes madre from three resins. The passing of the years, inadequate conservation conditions and dirt are defining aspects in the appearance of fungi or the yellowing of varnishes, so that if sculptures or paintings are illuminated with a wood lamp, we can clearly distinguish fungal conditions, and the extent of dirt (even where they are not yet perceptible to the naked eye), or if a painting has been touched up because the yellowing of old varnishes turns fluorescent.
Heart of Jesus inspected with wood lamp
In the ITEHISproject a wood lamp that emitting light around 365nm (UV) and producing fluorescence around 500nm (perceptible by the human eye) has been used to inspect a statue of the Heart of Jesus from the late 19th century, validating the fungal infection (especially mold) and making evident its true extent.
A wood lamp thus becomes an absolutely effective, eay-to-use, non-invasive and economically admissible mean, even for a person like you and me, to help clean and restore our heritage. A true example of a “low-cost” technique to keep it there. But this does not end here, because further R&D is required to associate new colours with new pathologies in a moment where climate change and human globalization bring “bugs” that do not correspond to the latitudes where they currently appear. But don´t worry about that, CARTIF is already taking care of it.
“Pumps, pumps…” So goes one of the best-known songs by a Spanish artist from the early and mid-90s Spanish music scene. Although too much has happened since then, we can relate the theme to the current energy crisis we are suffering, caused by the war between Ukraine and Russia.
We are talking about heat pumps.
The concept of how heat pumps works is very simple, in fact, we all have a very similar, refrigeration machine at home, the refrigerator. Heat pumps, like the fridge, base their operation on compressing a refrigerant liquid contained in a closed circuit. This liquid is capable of collecting heat from the environment (in the case of the fridges, it collects heat from inside the fridge, cooling it) and thanks to the compression it undergoes, its temperature increases. This heat is then dissipated in the grille at the back.
The same applies to heat pumps, which are able to collect heat from the outside (even if the temperature is low) and thanks to the compression of the refrgierant, increases its temperature, thus making indoor heating possible.
Because heat pumps are highly efficient equipment, they don´t help to reduce the energy bill of our homes.
Im sure you have heard oft aero-thermal heating, right? Well, if you have any doubts about what it consists of, it is based on the operation of a heat pump that collects heat from the air in the outside environment (hence its name).
It is well known and proven that more than 40% of the energy consumed in Europe is used to air-condition homes. In this sense, heat pumps are the perfect ally as they offer us an efficiency of around 400%, that is to say, for every unit of energy they use, which is usually electrical energy, they are capable of producing 4 units of thermal energy (both heating and cooling), thus offering us high savings rates. In addition, new technologies nowadays allow us to reach higher and higehr heating temperatures due to the use of new coolants and new technologies, such as heat pumps based on acoustic waves that replace the electrical energy source with ultrasound to excite the coolant and thus increase its temperature, but…
Is all that glitters gold? Let´s take a look at it; actually when talking about savings from the use of heat pumps, we have to talk about energy savings and then..we look at the money. Calculating the economic savings provided by theseenergy savings is extremely complicated in the times in which we live, let me explain; currently the price of electricity (the most common energy source for heat pumps) is on a constant roller coaster, where you can see every day how the price changes considerably between the valley-flat-peak periods, in addition to the difference in the intra-daily price (nobody really knows why, there could be many explanations that would take several entries in this blog).
In addition to the price, the different energy sources have to be taken into account, as it is not the same thing to replace a gas or oil boiler, electric heaters or any other heating source with a heat pump. This makes it more difficult to talk about economic savings because the different energy sources also come into play
A third derivative in the economic sense, and something that heat pumps manufacturers do not usually take into account, is that in the case of installation in a home, this is not normally prepared to cover the new electricity consumption that is going to be produced by the installation of the pump, and I will explain this with an example:
Let´s imagine we have a 37kW gas boiler of supplying heat to a house and we want to replace this boiler with a heat pump. We have already mentioned that this equipment offers a ratio of 4 to 1 in terms of heat production and electricity consumption, therefore, to cover 37kW of heat, we have to consume 37/4 =9.25kW of electrical power which we will probably not have contracted and contracting them will increase the bill we are going to pay every month in terms of the fixed term, whether we use the heat pump or not.
So we are saving or not? The ideal way to estimate the savings from installing or replacing an old boiler with a heat pump should be done implementing a reliable measurement and verification protocol, as has been done in the REUSEHEATproject in which CARTIF has participated in the implementation of the IPMVP. To this end, monitored data from the heat generation systems of several demonstratos have been used, connected to the internet via different IoT protocols, send this data to a common platform where the energy savings are calculated.
This savings are calculated on the basis of a mathematical model made with the data from the time period before the installation of the heat pump. Once the actual consumption after the installation of the heat pump is known, the conditions under which this consumption was achieved (weather, indoor comfort,etc.) are taken into the model and the energy that would have been consumed under the conditions prior to the installation of the heat pump is calculated.
At this point, knowing the energy that has been saved, the moneysaved by using heat pumps could be estimated economically, on the basis of an average price, a more detailed estimate of the price, or as you think best.
Savings obtained at the REUSEHEAT project in one of the demonstrators (comparison real consume vs model at the superior part and savings obtained in the inferior part representd by bars)
The REUSEHEAT project shows very satisfactory results for the use of this type of technology and the energy saving produced. In addition, heat pumps are considered a renewable energy source (when in addition to using aero-thermal energy they meet certain conditions) and clean and avoid a large percentage of CO2 emissions. There is talk that they could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 70%.
CARTIF believes that we ,ust continue to support this type of technology and the innovations that help us to improve them, not only for heat pumps based on aero-thermal energy, but also geo-thermal energy, hydro-thermal energy,etc.
