With this post I would like to take up the theme of under road heating, in order to delve a bit more into the benefit that can have heating the most critical points of the road.
As I already indicated, the current solution to avoid and eliminate icing on the roads is the application of chemical deicers, which we all know as “road salt”. To a greater or lesser extent, this substance is sodium chloride, an inexpensive and effective product. I would like to stop here for a little reflection, are we really aware of the damage we are doing using these substances? Surely not, that’s why people rejoice when they see the salt spread.
Millions of tons are scattered annually on our roads, often without proper distribution to the road and with excessive frequency. For this reason, I would like to highlight some of its harmful consequences:
The vegetation near the road is the first to suffer the negative effects of salt, on the one hand, the high concentrations of chloride make it a toxic element, causing the gilding or burning of the leaves, and on the other hand, the High concentrations of sodium can affect plant growth by altering soil structure, permeability and aeration
A significant proportion of the salt is washed away by rainwater reaching aquifers, reservoirs, rivers, wetlands, etc., causing a dramatic increase in the risk of contamination of delicate ecosystems and even in many cases of the water we drink.
Salt greatly affects the health of wildlife from two points of view: due to the serious consequences of its consumption due to its toxicity, especially to birds, and the frequency of run over, since salt attracts the animals for their ingestion.
Another point that we hardly consider is the soil, although its degradation is a serious problem for Europe. Salt reduces the stability of the soil, modifies its electrical conductivity, decreases its pH and in general, seriously impairs its fertility.
As we can see, the environmental impact of chemical deicers is very intense, therefore, we should try to make an effort to minimize their effect, using all the technology that is within our reach to achieve a less aggressive winter maintenance
A partial solution would be to be able to measure in real time the amount of chemical deicers at each point of the road, not just at a fixed point. This would only be achieved by loading the sensors into the intervention and maintenance vehicles. Currently, there are some systems under development that measure wheel splatter, measuring the water refraction index (Japan Highway Public Corporation) or electrical conductivity (University of Cone). Given their results, they have never been incorporated into the market.
From CARTIF, with the collaboration of the Spanish company Collosa, we are investigating in the development of this product. The objectives are to avoid spreading more road salt when the current quantities are sufficient, to throw only the necessary quantity in the precise place that needs it (given the system of global positioning of these devices) and to give an objective tool to the responsible of the winter maintenance, so that he can make the right decision.
In CARTIF we are committed to a final solution that avoids dispersing chemical deicers as far as possible. If we manage to attack the problem in the most dangerous points, preventing and avoiding the formation of ice, we will avoid the exit of the truck to cover those points with chemical deicers. In addition, this outlet will not only cover the dangerous points, but will spread the chemical deicers all over the road.
This solution is the development of a more economical radiant floor with more energy efficiency, based on geothermal energy. For this, the development of an intelligent prediction that prevents the formation of ice and is based on the use of new bituminous mixtures is fundamental.
Undoubtedly, this will mean a significant reduction in the environmental impact of winter maintenance on our roads and in particular in the most sensitive areas of our geography such as natural parks.
Have you ever wondered how a R&D project arises? How is it possible, for example, to be able to apply a photocatalytic treatment in the heart of a big city like Madrid? Ensuring respect of the environment through R&D requires a detailed plan of action, which involves many different actors and implies a very interesting four-phase sequence, to allow all the pieces fit.
Let’s see the recipe for success:
1) IDEA. Also known as the phase “Eureka!”. It is referred to that moment when, due to a known environmental issue, a company / organization / administration decides to contact a technological center to find a solution. Or, on the contrary, CARTIF researchers, on their continued commitment to update the state of the art of the technologies they develop, decide to look for a company committed to the environment to work on a new challenge.
2) APPLIED RESEARCH. It is named, in petit committee, as the phase “Let’s see what we have here”. Once the environmental issue to be addressed is identified, together with the science principles in which it is based on, it is time to decide how to apply them to the areas of demand. We have to use the generated knowledge by basic research and lead to the environmental problems selected in the phase of Idea. Here the purpose is always to produce technology for the development of the environmental issues addressed in the previous stage and the possibility of having additional aid, which supports part of the funding, can also be recommendable. These grants enable companies to address this phase with more resources and multiply, consequently, the scope of their results. Spanish calls of CDTI are well suited for this aim.
3) DEMONSTRATION. Also denominated “The time to act is now“. We know the scientific principles and we have checked that, at a laboratory level, the technology developed works. Then comes the time to expand the scale and test it at a higher level. For this phase, it is again very interesting to have the possibility of support from external financing. For instance, calls for proposals for LIFE Grants are the only EU financial instrument fully dedicated to the environment. Currently, there are 10 on-going LIFE projects running in CARTIF and the topics addressed are very diverse, do you know them?.
4) COMMUNICATION. At last but not least, it is important to publish the results obtained, because of that, this stage is named “shouting to the four winds”. Environmental awareness inevitably involves knowing on what work is being performed, the rate of progress, what improvements are being made and which companies are involved on the issue. Scientific publications and patents are a good starting point for us, as a technological center, but there are also other forms, such as environmental labels and Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) to make visible which companies have a commitment with the environment.
Let us look at a successful example:
The problem of poor urban air quality due to environmental pollution by nitrogen oxides is an important environmental threat for the cities. Being able to reduce this issue is presented as a great challenge (phase: Eureka!). CARTIF participated in FENIX project few years ago, working actively, among other tasks, in the study, identification and selection of photocatalytic nanomaterials (phase: let’s see what we have here). Based on the good results achieved, some of the partners involved in this action decided to keep working and contacted the City of Madrid to increase the scale of the research and to ask for applying the developed treatment in the streets of the city centre (phase: the time to act is now). After that, LIFE EQUINOX, a R&D project began, coordinated by CARTIF, in October 2013, and it is still in progress (phase: shouting to the four winds).
Let us not forget, therefore, that it will always be better not to put the cart before the horse.
From the reproduction of vital organs to the construction of shelters in space, so revolutionary is the future of 3D printing. With this perspective, it is not surprising that many people ensure that this way of materializing objects will change our lives to unsuspected levels. We can say that a new industrial and technological revolution is taking place in the same way that when Internet appeared in our lives, a network of which many of us doubted in its beginnings and that has changed our world.
Currently, 3D printing, also called additive manufacturing, is fully deployed in the aerospace industry, in the engineering, architecture, defense, automotive and medicine. Its main applications are the reproduction of 3D scans and the printing of objects designed with three-dimensional modeling programs (CAD), which allow reducing the time of development of new products or even launch them to the market.
Its implications are endless. It is not already necessary to wait months to have a huge quantity of the first model of an object to launch a product, due to three-dimensional model can be sent hundreds or thousands of kilometers away to become an object in any place. In this way, in the future, a lot of industrial production will be on demand and will travel online, and will completely change the idea of consuming products, because every person has the ability to customize their own products with a great advantage: the exclusivity of each article.
Although the majority of current 3D printings are not able to produce very tough, economical and even useful pieces enough to replace traditional production ways, they have a very relevant application nowadays; educate in the use of technology.
In relation to the future, from the social point of view, I think that the true revolution of printing will not be a specific application or use, but the speed with which this technology, which today it looks like magic, will turn into something essential for our lives. From the technical point of view, at the same time that technologies will be capable to depositing materials, we will see a growing emergence of functional parts that fully exploit the capabilities of additive manufacturing.
Something very revolutionary will be the 3D printing applied to medicine, reconstructive, maxillofacial, or orthodontic traumatology, where is already being investigated with biompatible materials that will give the possibility of making organs accepted by humans and surgeons will have in a few days of objects to solve the problems of each person in a specialized way.
In short: 3D printing has come to say and change the way we consume and produce forever.
During these dates we usually toast at Christmas celebrations. The idea is to toast with a frothy drink, although sometimes we don´t know how to differentiate well one from the other, because we may confuse the terms “sparkling wine”, “cava” and “champagne”.
Cava and champagne are two types of sparkling wine that are elaborated in the same way, using the “champenoise méthode”, with similar grape varieties; besides, the first is elaborated in Spain and the second in France. The cava came out in the late nineteenth century while champagne dates from to the seventeenth century. Taking into account also that the climate and soil influence the quality of the grape, it’s very difficult to compare, even using the same method.
The French drink with bubbles was known in its beginnings as “champagne”, in honor of the champenoise method, but when Spain joined the EU, our French neighbors claimed their right in exclusivity, with which Spain could not elaborate this sparkling wine and also call it champagne, since it was only valid for sparkling wines produced in the region of Champagne; so it was decided to re-baptize this Spanish Designation of Origin as Cava Designation of Origin (D.O.), doing honor to the underground cellars or cavas, where these sparkling wines were elaborated.
Another difference is that to bottle up champagne, it can be mixed grapes of different vintages, compensating the quality by this way. When it is made only with one vintage, it is called “millesime” or “vintage“. By contrast, in the cava the typical thing is to bottle wines of a single vintage.
After explaining the terms, let’s focus on the Cava D.O., the Spanish.
Usually, D.O. refer to a particular region, for example, Ribera del Duero D.O., La Mancha D.O., even in non-wine products, such as Sierra de Cazorla Oils, Rincón de Soto Pears, Cabrales Cheese. The Cava D.O.is the only denomination of Spanish origin that puts the vinification method (the traditional champagnoise or second fermentation in bottle) to its geographical origin. Of course, it is not possible to label a sparkling Spanish with the “word” cava if it is not produced in officially recognized zones or wineries.
In the case of wine, the Cava denomination is the only denomination of Spanish supraterritorial origin, together with Rioja; this means that it exceeds the autonomic borders, although more than 98% of Cava’s total production comes from Catalonia, existing also production areas in municipalities in other regions.
The Regulation of the Cava Denomination and its Regulatory Council was approved by Order of 14.11.91 (BOE 20.11.91) and modified by different Orders. Prior to these Regulations, on February 27, 1986, the Order establishing the reservation of the “Cava” Denomination was published for quality sparkling wines produced by the traditional method in the region determined therein. But there were a number of sparkling winemakers that already made the production of wine base and/or cava prior to the entry into force of the Order of 1986. That is why, within the terms of reference of the regulations there are a number of exceptions that apply to certain wineries that may use the term “Cava D.O.” even if they occur in municipalities that are not among the 159 that are mentioned in the Regulation.
The curiosity is that of the wineries that are mentioned as exceptions there are one of Zaragoza, one of Girona, one of Valencia, one of Barcelona (regions included in the Cava Region), but there is one winery in the region of Burgos, one wine cellar of Aranda de Duero that, although it is not included in the Cava region, can elaborate sparkling wines by labeling them as Cava D.O. Strange, isn´t it?
“Cities are no more than ecosystems that consume resources and transform them to produce outputs as services, goods or waste” says Richard Rogers in his book “Cities for a Small Planet”. Certainly, sustainability of these complex ecosystems depends on our capability to reduce the non-renewable sources consumption, waste production or the various means of contamination (atmospheric, light or acoustic), as well as on establishing circular strategies that allow generating new resources based on the produced wastes.
On the other hand, the technology development (that happens mostly in cities) provokes that we have an increasingly important new resource, which is the information through data, generated by citizens and the systems they use. Perhaps this source was not considered in the Rogers’ ecosystem (or at least not as important as it is now) which he said that should be circular and therefore reduce its dependency on external sources and the production of wastes as output. But there is no doubt on that, under this new industrial revolution that we are witnessing, “data is the new oil” (as David Buckingham, President at AIMIA Shopper Insights, says), whose refinement, exploitation and transformation into services allows improving the citizens’ quality of life.
Coming back to Rogers’ text, in the prologue to the Spanish version, who was the Mayor of Barcelona between 1982 and 1997, Pasqual Maragall, wrote that “my city is imposed as an indisputable evidence, the environment of everything, or almost everything that happens to me, the greatest place among all I can modify, about which I can really influence, physically, and not only through the fiction of the vote”.
It is difficult to establish an accepted definition of what a Smart City is, and even more agreeing how to measure it, but it is indubitable that the basis of the city of the future has its ground on these three ingredients that Rogers, Buckingham and Maragall state, where if we mix them we find out that in the challenge of transforming the city –understanding that every action will have an impact on its performance–, we need to work on improving the efficiency of its ecosystem –making it more sustainable–, and integrating this important source which is data to provide to citizens new and improved services to turn their day-to-daymore efficient as well. At the end, a city can’t be smart if we are not making a smart use of it and its resources.
Furthermore, undeniably, the Smart concept is trendy, and it is not only the city understanding that new mechanisms should be implemented to improve this ecosystem, but among the citizens, there is an increasing demand and use of smart technology solutions. Now, the challenge is on finding the balance among these two axes, which should converge on transforming the urban environment into a smarter and more sustainable place to live and work by agreeing those that plan it and those that are already making a smart use of sources and services.
Many of these concepts have been evident in the Smart City Expo and World Congress in Barcelona, which has been again postulated as main fora among cities, industry and citizens in this year’s edition, where all these stakeholders have gathered to learn under a Congress that this year was entitled “Cities for Citizens” which could not better summarise the ideas that this post try to share.
This was a “must” event for our Smart City projects, where we have been able to share the urban regeneration processes that we are implementing in the 16 cities in which our projects R2CITIES, CITyFiED, REMOURBAN and mySMARTLife are working, through actions in the convergence area of energy efficiency, smart and sustainable mobility and ICTs that we are implementing.
Bad news for those people who love sweet food. In the Guideline: sugars intake for adults and children (2015), WHO recommends a reduced intake of free sugars to below 5% of total energy intake. A few 6 teaspoons of coffee/day (25 g), including sugar that provide food. And this also aims to for those who are thinking: “what are you telling me? I add honey”. Ok, but although it is very “natural”, the bitter reality is that more 80% of honey are also sugars.
The recommendation is further supported by evidence showing higher rates of dental caries when the intake of free sugars is above 10 % of total energy. This evidence shows those adults that increasing the amount of sugars in the diet is associated with a comparable weight increase. In addition, children who consume much more sugar are more likely to be overweight or obese than children with a low intake of sugar-sweetened.
United Kingdom announced that they were going to apply taxes to sugars sweetened beverages, which is an important topic of argument in Europe. In fact, Catalonia has taken the initiative, announcing it expected to establish the first regional assessment to sugars sweetened beverages during the next year. The rate will vary from them 8 cts/L, for drinks that contain 5 to 8 grams by 100 ml, and of 12 cts/L for which overcome it.
It is suggested that priority is given to food categories that commonly represent major sources of added sugars in Member States’ diets, that have a high public health impact or that are recommended to be consumed. According to these criteria, the relevant food categories where efforts should be focused on are:
In CARTIF, we know that reducing content of sugars in food is not easy because aside from sweetness, sugars also influence many product properties.
In bakery products, the role of sugar (sucrose) is very important because also influence many product properties such as the volume, texture and colour:
• Sugar increases gelatinization temperature of starch, so that air bubbles trapped lightening the texture. • It is a humectant (fixed water), this is important for conservation food e also affect its texture. • It works as a base for the fermentation of the yeast (for example when the bread is growing). • Sugar reduces freezing point, what is important to produce softer ice cream and to increase boiling point, fundamental for manufacturing of sweet. • Sugars are responsible of brown color development of many cooked food, through two processes: Maillard reaction and caramelization. • Sugars are important for the preservation of the food. High levels of sugar limit microbial growth and allow the food to last longer.
Now, we can already get an idea that reducing sugars is difficult from technological point of view and because changing its organoleptic characteristics. I will leave for a second part of this post how currently the products without sugars are developing.
