Consumption Waste Research Articles

A novel procedure for CFU plating and counting

We present a novel method to automate plating for the Colony Forming Unit (CFU) counting procedure. The apparatus we developed for the application of this method is based on motorized stages and a syringe in order to spread fine drops of a liquid containing a solution of interest on a plate without direct contact with the surface. The apparatus can be used in two different modes. In the the first method which follows the same principle as the classical CFU count, fine drops of liquid are deposited homogeneously on an agar plate and microorganisms are allowed to form colonies. In the second, novel method that we call P0, isolated drops of the order of 10 μL containing both the microbes and the nutrient medium are deposited directly on a regular grid on a hard surface (plastic or glass); after incubation, drops that show no sign of growth inside are used to determine the microbes concentration. This new method removes the need for preparing agar surfaces and allows for easy disposal of waste and reuse of consumables. The apparatus is simple to build and use, the plating is fast and the CFU count in both type of plating is extremely reproducible and robust.

Synergistic utilization of porous coral sand and fly ash for multifunctional engineered cementitious composites with polyethylene fibers: Intensified electromagnetic wave absorption and mechanism

The large-scale consumption of industrial solid waste for fly ash is imperative for clean material production. Among these, abundant coral sand is a potential alternative to river silica sand in construction materials. This study proposes an environmentally friendly synergistic utilization of coral sand as a natural porous aggregate that can be incorporated with fly ash and polyethylene (PE) fibers to prepare multifunctional engineered cementitious composites (ECCs) with good electromagnetic (EM) wave absorption and mechanical properties. The effects of porous coral sand, PE fibers, and fly ash on the EM parameters, hydration products, pore distribution, microstructure, and reflection loss of the ECCs were systematically investigated. The mechanical properties and environmental impact were also examined. The results showed that the synergistic integration of porous coral sand, PE fibers, and fly ash optimized the pore distribution, attenuation paths, impedance matching, multiscattering effect, nanoscale effect, and interfacial polarization of the ECCs, which were conducive to the intensification of EM wave absorption. In particular, the appropriate use of natural coral sand as porous aggregates increased the EM wave absorption, while retaining the mechanical strength and excellent tensile properties of the ECCs. Environmental impact assessment showed that the alkalis of the prepared multifunctional ECCs were solidified in the C–S–H gels, which cannot be easily ionized, thereby inhibiting environmental pollution.

FBL-ET: A federated broad learning framework based on event trigger

Federated learning (FL) is proposed to exchange models between server and clients rather than data, which protects privacy. But one important problem in FL is that the clients may be unreliable. The clients may suddenly hang up. If the hung-up clients are selected by the server, the time consumption can be significant. To solve this problem, in this paper, the clients are set to have the communication initiative, so they can decide whether or not to upload their local models. Another problem in FL is that the quality of the clients’ models cannot be determined. If some models have bad quality, they will have a bad impact on the quality of the global model. To improve the quality of models upload by clients, we set an upload condition for each client, and the client will upload the model only when the condition is satisfied. For both purposes, we introduce an event-triggered method into federated broad learning, i.e. FBL-ET. We set up a test set on each client, and based on the prediction accuracy, a specified dynamic trigger condition is designed for each client. Therefore, FBL-ET reduces time consumption and improves the quality of uploaded models by introducing an event-triggered mechanism. In addition, in order to improve the activity of clients and attract more high-quality clients to participate in global aggregation, FBL-ET introduces an incentive mechanism. Finally, experimental results show that FBL-ET has higher accuracy than the original federated broad learning method, and can effectively reduce the waste of communication consumption.

Tailored Laser Structuring of Tungsten Carbide Cutting Tools for Improving Their Tribological Performance in Turning Aluminum Alloy Al6061 T6.

In times of societal development, sustainability has become a major concern for many manufacturers in the metal industries. In this context, surface texturing of cutting tools offers a promising approach in terms of reducing energy consumption and material waste. In this work, direct laser interference patterning is utilized for producing periodic line-like structures with spatial periods of 2.0 µm and 5.5 µm on rake-flank faces of cemented tungsten carbide cutting inserts. Structure depths up to 1.75 µm are reached by controlling the applied number of laser pulses. Turning experiments under lubricated conditions carried out on Al 6061 T6 parts with textured and untreated tools are performed to determine their tribological performances. The used textured cutting tools can effectively decrease machining forces up to 17% due to the corresponding improvement in frictional behavior at the tool/chip interface. Furthermore, the laser-processed tools produce thinner chips and decrease the surface roughness by 31% of the aluminum work piece.

Sustainable production of AlSi10Mg parts by laser powder bed fusion process

Laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF) is an additive manufacturing technology that allows producing complex and lightweight parts without the use of specific tooling during the building process. However, despite continuous developments, some problems limit its use in series production. To introduce these systems in mass production, it is necessary to solve the problems and exceed the limits related to the requirements of industrialization: higher productivity, less material consumption, less over-production, and less waste, greater stability of the process, and higher quality of the final components. In this study, good practices to reduce resource consumption are presented. The production rate of the L-PBF technique was increased to produce AlSi10Mg alloy components. All the samples were manufactured with 90-µm-layer thickness increasing productivity by approximately 65%. A design of experiments (DOE) method was used to analyze the effect of process parameters on the densification percentage. The produced samples were observed with a non-destructive process, the X-ray computed tomography system, to detect the presence of defects and pores. It has been found that a combination of parameters can induce porosities with a morphology such that after stress relieving the density increases rather than decreases as has been widely discussed in the literature. The mechanical properties are comparable with the literature values for conventional technologies. Good values of as-built surface roughness were also achieved despite the layer thickness.

Enabling macroscopic superlubricity in TaC/a-C nanocomposite film by atomic-level Au

Endowing the hard protective coating systems with macroscopic superlubricity can adequately minimize unnecessary material consumption and energy waste caused by friction and wear. Herein, a novel scheme for realizing superlubricity-protective bifunction is demonstrated, namely introducing atomic-level dispersed Au atoms (∼1.4 at.%) into the TaC / amorphous carbon (a-C) nanocomposite structure consisting of the TaC-nanoparticles-based network backbone and the a-C filler. With the aid of the atomic-level dispersed Au atoms reducing the ordered transformation barrier of a-C, the in-situ formation of graphite-like carbon (GLC) flakes during the sliding process wrap the TaC grains to form TaC@GLC nanoscrolls in the shearing layer for multi-contact configuration and incommensurate contact, thereby obtaining the robust macroscopic superlubrication with the friction of coefficient of ∼0.002 and the ultra-low wear rate of ∼8.80 × 10−10 (mm−3/Nm). This strategy of triggering in-situ self-assembled nanoscrolls from hard protective coatings provides a new avenue to enable macroscopic superlubricity for robust engineering applications.

Dietary modeling of greenhouse gases using OECD meat consumption/retail availability estimates

Abstract Research has demonstrated different carbon footprints, based on portion estimations. However, previous estimates are low and often omit the impact of food waste. For example, a high-level of daily meat consumption has been estimated at 100 g, which is less than a typical “quarter pounder” hamburger. We used the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) annual estimates of national retail availability, and applied a mathematical model to prorate other research results to determine a meat portion equal to current OECD statistics, and also projected the diets to 2500 and 3250 kcal, to include consumer and retail waste. Once prorated, the 14 national studies are contrasted and analyzed for reasonableness against OECD data pertaining to U.S., U.K., E.U., vegetarian and vegan diets. We quantify how previous studies underestimated greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and show that previous GHG study results for the highest tier most accurately predict average national dietary consumption.

Uniaxial Compressive Stress-Strain Model of Jujube Nucleus Concrete following Exposure to Elevated Temperatures.

Aiming to provide a solution for natural resource consumption and agricultural waste pollution, jujube nucleus is utilized as a substitute for coarse aggregate in the preparation of lightweight aggregate concrete. The effect of the jujube nucleus (JN) replacement ratio and the elevated temperature on the uniaxial compressive stress-strain curves of jujube nucleus concrete (JNC) are experimentally studied. The results show that the failure of the JNC prisms became more serious with the increase in the JN replacement ratio. The linear proportion in ascending branch and the descending slope of the stress-strain curves for JNC increased gradually with the increase in the JN replacement ratio and elevated temperature, which is probably owing to the higher porosity and lower stiffness of the jujube nucleus, compared to natural aggregate. Moreover, as the JN replacement ratio and the elevated temperature increase, the peak stress and elastic modulus in the stress-strain curves of JNC decrease gradually, whilst an increase in the peak strain shows up, which is possibly due to the growth of hydrate calcium silicate and calcium hydroxide hampered by sucrose molecules. Based on the test results, a series of theoretical formulas are proposed to predict the compressive performance of JNC. A material constitutive model is developed for describing the stress-strain relationship of JNC by considering the JN replacement ratio and elevated temperature.

Towards low-budget energy efficiency design in additive manufacturing based on variational scale-aware transformer

In opposite to subtractive manufacturing methodologies, additive manufacturing (AM) embraces plenty of sustainable advantages to decrease energy consumption and material waste. With the explosive data growth in AM, machine learning (ML) attracts widespread attention to enable AM designers to critically estimate energy consumption in the design stage, and thus adopt the optimal part geometry and process planning for cleaner production in AM. However, recent ML methods require massive annotated labels and usually neglect the dimensional variations of products, thereby leading to deficient energy efficiency design performance with a high experimental budget. To address these issues, the Variational Scale-aware Transformer (VST) network is proposed to precisely predict AM energy consumption with modest computational and experimental costs for low-budget energy efficiency design in AM. The task of AM energy consumption prediction is first modeled as a non-linear regression problem, where the sliced layered image (SLI) is generated as the network input in light of the layer-wise manufacturing principle in AM. The proposed VST leverages its novel multi-stage architecture to transfer the learnt comprehensive understanding from a small dimensional scale to a large dimensional scale, adapting to the increasing part dimension and geometry complexity. The multi-scale awareness module (MSAM) is further devised as a four-stage feature hierarchy for generating feature maps in different dimensional scales, efficiently enabling the seamless fusion of the fine-grained, coarse-grained, and local variational scale embeddings. Extensive numerical and physical experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method consistently outperforms the state-of-the-art networks and enhances the energy prediction performance for low-budget energy efficiency design in AM.

Design and key technology of the energy consumption management system for the liquid cooling data center

AbstractIn view of the serious problem of energy consumption waste in the application process of liquid cooling data center, a new energy consumption management system of liquid cooling data center is constructed in this research. Energy consumption predictor, resource controller and resource configurator are used to monitor and manage energy consumption and optimize resource allocation of liquid cooling data center. The S3C2440A microprocessor with the internal core of ARM920T is adopted as the core controller of the energy consumption data collection system, and the energy consumption sampling circuit is designed with the voltage transformer and the current transformer, and attenuation network is adopted to prevent frequency aliasing in data sampling. Particle swarm optimization algorithm is used to identify the parameters in the model estimator, and the resource coordinator is used to solve the power consumption and the performance models. When using multiple physical servers to simulate the data center environment, the experimental structure shows that the system in the research can control the overall energy consumption of the server within 260 W, and the prediction error of the model estimator is kept lower than 2.4%.

Investigation of the Causal Relationships between Economic Development and Combustible Renewables and Waste Consumption in Central Asian Countries

This study examines the relationships between Foreign direct investment (FDI), Gross domestic product (GDP), Trade, Inflation, Labor force, Population density, Combustible renewables and waste consumption for the case of Central Asia, spanning the period 1990 to 2020. The combustible renewables and wastes consumption in Central Asia are based on the long run and short run relationship between economic development with the Error Correction Model (ECM) based Panel Cointegration tests and Panel Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) Granger causality test tried to explain using the causality test, spanning the period 1990 to 2020. An empirical analysis uses the Im, Pesaran, and Shin (CIPS) Panel Unit Root test and Westerlund ECM to test the basics of the data unit based on this information. The Panel Vector Autoregression (PVAR) specification was based on the results of the Lag-order selection criteria, and the stability of the PVAR model was checked through the observation of the Hausman test and Eigenvalue stability condition. It performs tests to verify the existence of the long run relationships among the variables and examines short and long run causal relationships. It finds that increased combustible renewables and waste consumption use is the main cause of increased economic growth.

Study on hydrodynamics characteristics in a gas-liquid stirred tank with a self-similarity impeller based on CFD-PBM coupled model

BackgroundIn general, radial impeller has been the most widely employed for the gas-liquid mixing process in the stirred tank. However, gas cavities are easy to form behind the impeller blades, which results in the waste of power consumption, the limited gas handling capacity of impeller and the poor dispersion of gas. Based on self-similarity property of nonlinear theory, a type of self-similarity impeller was employed to strengthen gas-liquid dispersion process in this work. MethodsThe hydrodynamics of gas-liquid dispersion process in a stirred tank with Rushton turbine and self-similarity impeller were comparatively investigated by computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation combined with a population balance model (PBM). The gas holdup distribution, gas cavities, relative power demand (RPD), bubble size distribution and turbulent intensity analysis in the gas-liquid dispersion process were predicted. Significant findingsResults showed that self-similarity impeller could destroy the gas cavity structure, reduce the negative pressure zone and gas accumulation, enhance the relative power demand (RPD) and improve the uniformity of gas holdup distribution compared with Rushton turbine, and the gas-liquid mixing efficiency can be further improved with the increase of the self-similar iteration number of self-similarity impeller. The proper increase of impeller speed was beneficial to overcome gas flooding and improve the gas-liquid two phase dispersion uniformity. The increase of gas flow rate obviously increased the gas holdup in liquid phase. Meanwhile, self-similarity impeller could increase the uniformity of bubble size compared with Rushton turbine, and increasingly so with the increase of self-similar iteration number of self-similarity impeller. The uniformity of bubble size was improved with the increase of impeller speed and was decreased with the increase of gas flow rate. In addition, self-similarity impeller could significantly enhance the turbulent intensity and turbulent kinetic energy dissipation rate by the jet flows through the concave-convex edges, which was beneficial to the gas dispersion process.

Use of steel slag and LAS-based modifying admixture in obtaining highly eco-efficient precast concrete products

This paper presents a study on improving the eco-efficiency of no-slump concrete for precast elements using Basic Oxygen Furnace Slag (BOFS). Recycled BOFS powders and aggregates have been produced to obtain mixtures with better particle size distribution and improved packing density based on a particle packing method. A comprehensive experimental investigation was carried out on mixtures with different cement contents (5%, 10%, and 15% vol.) and compaction energy levels (6, 10, and 20 blows in a sand rammer). A modifying admixture based on Linear Alkyl Benzene Sodium Sulfonate (LAS) has also been evaluated as a workability and cohesiveness enhancer for steel slag concretes. In addition, concrete eco-efficiency was evaluated by measuring the binder intensity (bi) and waste consumption. The highest compaction energy provided packing densities ranging from 0.78 to 0.80, and BOFS aggregates led to better mechanical performances. The BOFS concrete containing 15% cement obtained the best strength (52.1 MPa) and bi value (7.0 kg/m³/MPa), with a waste consumption of 2356.57 kg/m³. The mixture with the lowest cement consumption (5% - 121.56 kg/m³) and the highest consumption of waste (2637.82 kg/m³) reached 16 MPa, delivering a bi of 7.6 kg/m³/MPa.

Knowledge, Attitude, and Practices toward Plastic Pollution among Malaysians: Implications for Minimizing Plastic Use and Pollution

Excessive production, consumption, and indiscriminate disposal of plastic waste contribute to plastic pollution, which has a negative impact on the environment and human health. The KAP (knowledge, attitude, and practices) study is thought to be useful in mitigating plastic pollution because understanding the public’s knowledge, attitude, and practices toward plastic pollution can help identify problems and challenges, allowing appropriate policy decisions to be made to set up plans or implement interventions. This study assesses Malaysians’ level of knowledge, attitude, and practices toward plastic pollution, as well as the variation of plastic pollution related to KAP among various socio-demographic groups. For this study, an online survey received 294 valid responses. Descriptive statistics, KAP scoring, and response cross-tabulation were calculated. This study received 294 valid responses via an online survey. Descriptive statistics, KAP scoring, and response cross-tabulation were estimated. A one-way analysis of variance, paired t-test, and binary logistic regressions was performed. Respondents’ overall knowledge score (95% CI mean score: 3.88–10.94 on a scale of 11) and practice score (95% CI 1.09–6.53 on a scale of 6) were poor across socio-demographics when a cut point of 80% was used. Older (>46 years) respondents seemed to have more knowledge than younger (18–30 years) respondents (odds ratio, OR 4.304; p < 0.01). However, respondents between the ages of 31 and 45 reported significantly (p < 0.01) higher attitudes (OR 4.019) and practices (OR 4.056; p < 0.05). Respondents with environmental-related university education had a higher likelihood of knowing about plastic pollution (OR 10.343; p < 0.01). To encourage good practices toward minimizing plastic use and pollution, conclusions are drawn about undertaking interventions such as raising environmental awareness, incorporating plastic pollution topics into formal and informal education, and providing recycling facilities in nearby communities.

Does plate waste matter?: A two-stage cluster survey to assess the household plate waste in the Philippines

BackgroundPlate waste is an urgent global public health problem. Gaining better knowledge of the quantity and patterns of plate waste among households may give critical insights into resolving the greater problem of unnecessary plate waste. The study was conducted to determine the amount of plate wastage across food security levels of households and evaluate possible factors associated with plate waste.MethodsThis investigation analyzed the data from the 2018 Expanded National Nutrition Survey. Food weighing, food inventory, and food recall were the methods used to collect household food consumption and plate waste. Household Food Insecurity Access Scale was used to identify levels of food security among households.ResultsThe present study has revealed that the average household plate waste of rice was 49.6 g ± 4.7; meat, fish, & poultry was 7.5 g ± 0.5; and vegetable was 6.7 g ± 0.3. Rice (58%), vegetables (18%), and meat (9%) were the top 3 most wasted foods among Filipino households. Test showed that there was a significant difference in the wastage of rice (p < 0.001), corn (p < 0.001), vegetables (p < 0.05), fish (p < 0.001), meat (p < 0.001), and fats and oils (p = 0.001) across household food security levels. Households with the highest consumption of rice was 1.24 (CI: 1.06 – 1.46) times more likely to have rice waste compared to those households with the lowest consumption. Households with a female household head was 0.82 (CI: 0.78 – 0.87) times less likely to have plate waste of rice and rice products compared to those with male household head. The odds of rice wasting of household in urban areas was 0.83 (CI: 0.77 – 0.89) times higher in contrast to rural areas. The odds of rice wasting was 1.38 (CI: 1.15 – 1.66) times higher for households in the rich quintile compared to the poorest quintile. Household with highest vegetable consumption were 3.56 (CI: 2.51 – 5.03) times more likely to have vegetable waste compared to those with the lowest consumption. Households with 5 members were 1.13 (CI: 1.01 – 1.27) times more likely to have vegetable waste. The odds of wasting vegetables was 1.50 (CI: 1.14–1.97) times greater among households in the richest quintile compared in the poorest quintile. Families with the highest fish, meat & poultry consumption was 1.38 (CI: 1.01 – 1.91) times more likely of having fish, meat & poultry waste than households with lowest consumption. Fish, meat, and poultry plate waste was 0.81 (CI: 0.68 – 0.96) times less likely in households with 5 members or less than in households with more than 5 members. Compared to households in the lowest quintile, those in the middle quintile were 1.55 (CI: 1.01 – 2.38) times more likely to throw away fish, meat, and poultry. The odds of wasting fish, meat, and poultry was 2.26 (CI: 1.35 – 3.79) times higher for those in the richest than those in the poorest quintile.ConclusionsFindings suggest that plate waste is indeed a public health problem that should be addressed. Future research studies should explore the nutrient losses that might stem from plate wastage in order to have a more accurate approach when it comes to the development of strategies and interventions aimed at reducing household plate waste.

МОДЕЛИРОВАНИЕ СИСТЕМЫ ЭКОЛОГИЧЕСКИ ОРИЕНТИРОВАННОГО УПРАВЛЕНИЯ В ОБЛАСТИ ТВЕРДЫХ КОММУНАЛЬНЫХ ОТХОДОВ

The article deals with the modeling of the system of environmentally oriented management in the field of municipal solid waste. Over the past years, the federal law on production and consumption waste has undergone a significant number of amendments, changes and additions. It should be noted that a number of changes were purely technical in nature. Currently, Russia has launched a reform of municipal solid waste, which resulted in the transition of the subjects of the Russian Federation to the regulation of the sphere of solid municipal waste management. The main law in the field of municipal solid waste management is the Federal Law of June 24, 1998 No. 89-FZ “On Production and Consumption Waste”. The main goal of the reform is to prevent the harmful effects of production and consumption waste on human health and the environment and to ensure a balance of interests between service providers and consumers. Recommendations for improving the system of environmentally oriented management in the field of waste disposal are proposed. The conclusion is made about the fragmentation of the solid municipal waste market and the approach to setting fees for waste removal, while as part of the transition of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation to a new system for handling municipal solid waste, the approach to regulating this industry is significantly changing.

An Opportunity to Learn

The visuals represented here derive from a two-year ethnographic project about smartphone repair practices in Switzerland, focusing on repair stores, hackerspaces, fab labs, and temporary venues such as repair cafés, which mostly focus on the material elements of the hardware (broken screens or buttons) and software issues (data recovery, setting updates, applications installation, etc.). Spending time in these shops over several months, allowed us to understand the positive social dimensions they have in local neighborhoods: while customers sometimes come to drink a cup of coffee and seek help with hardware issues (broken screens and damaged buttons), the repairers also help with minor problems for free (restoring settings, changing language or notification configurations) and sometimes fulfill roles way beyond their stated function, for instance by helping with administrative services (such as booking appointments online or filing tax forms). Our investigation addressed the practices of the technicians who founded, or operate, these places. We focused on how these individuals come to end up fixing customers' devices, and more specifically, on how they learned to handle products that manufacturers did not design to be repaired. This project hypothesized that a greater understanding of digital artifact maintenance is fundamental to meet the challenges of an era of environmental crisis and consumer waste. The description of repairers' practices, and the way they build their own know-how and expertise, highlight users' efforts to improve the sustainability of their technical objects, regardless of manufacturers' intentions. Focusing on repair stores, this comic strip visually describes the importance of “unmaking” as a learning tactic that repairers adopted to generate knowledge about the objects they plan to fix. This series of ethnographic vignettes illustrates the information these practitioners uncover by disassembling new phone models, documenting their manipulations, and sharing them with local and regional peers through media such as WhatsApp groups. This way of working against manufacturers can be seen as a form of “counter-making” (contre-faire) (Allard 2015, 164), mirroring the notion of “critical making” proposed by Matt Ratto in order to refer to knowledge generation emerging through material engagement with technology (Ratto 2011, 253). From a methodological perspective, this contribution also illustrates the visual dimension of the notion of “ethnographic vignette” (a situation observed and extracted from the field) that interested us in this project both for pragmatic reasons (observational drawing as a means of gaining acceptance in the field) and as an epistemological choice (in order to explore alternative formats of ethnographic accounts). Interestingly, this design choice was made because over the two years of the research project, several participants expressed their reluctance to being filmed and photographed, with some mentioning that they lacked the necessary work permits and risked being identified. As a consequence, the use of drawings became a solution to be respectful of these repairers, a way to avoid being too intrusive in their work context. However, we used photography to document the context of these shops as well as their material culture, with devices, tools, and ways of communicating. The combination of field drawings with these pictures highlights what “counter-making” actually means, from testing a dismantled device to solving a client's problem.

FACTORS OF USING WASTE AS FUEL IN THERMAL ENERGY SYSTEMSOF PART 2. DESIGN AND OPERATION FEATURES OF THE EQUIPMENT FOR SOLID WASTE BURNING

The use of solid household waste (SHW) as an energy raw material is one of the promising ways to solve the problem of accumulation of production and consumption waste. In recent decades, the share of solid waste, which is burned with the utilization of materials and heat, has been steadily increasing. However, since the composition of SHW and their combustible characteristics are significantly different from other known types of solid fuel, it is necessary to reconstruct the existing solid fuel heating boilers. The purpose of the study is to develop recommendations for the reconstruction of existing solid fuel circuits for the safe and efficient organization of the solid waste burning process. It is shown that in order to achieve complete combustion of the fuel and minimal emissions of the dispersed phase when burning solid waste, it is necessary to ensure a high flame temperature, the presence of an oxidizing medium and a significant volume of the furnace. The requirements for the arrangement of systems for cleaning combustion products from devices intended for solid waste incineration are given. Additional requirements for organizing the operation of fuel combustion systems using SHW are substantiated.

Ecological and chemical safety assessment of RDF as alternative fuel for boiler stations

In this paper, an ecological and chemical safety assessment of using RDF (Refuse-derived fuel) is considered. It is shown that production and consumption wastes, including combustible unclaimed fractions of secondary material resources from household solid waste, which have undergone preliminary sorting and preparation, in terms of grinding and cleaning from non-combustible inert materials, are used as raw materials for its manufacture. It has been established that it is expedient to use this type of fuel during thermal decomposition (pyrolysis) with a working temperature of about 1200-1500 °C, since at this temperature all substances pass into the composition of flue gases. Installation "Mark 1" is proposed, which can be used in boiler station for burning RDF. The technological scheme and the principle of operation of the proposed installation are described. An assessment of the impact of the operation of this installation on the environment was carried out. It is shown that the concentrations of pollutants from the heating system, according to the protocol for measuring quantitative chemical analysis (QCA) of emissions into the atmosphere at control points at a distance of 25 meters from the mouth of the boiler station pipe, using the example of pilot tests of RDF, do not exceed the MPC. Thus, the ecological and chemical safety of RDF is confirmed and its use in combustion plants equipped with swirling-type furnaces is justified.

NOVO CONCEITO LEGAL PARA ENTENDER A ESSÊNCIA DOS RESÍDUOS DE PRODUÇÃO E CONSUMO: UM OLHAR DA RÚSSIA

Abstract Recently, production and consumption waste has been recognized as a distinct legal category in the environmental law of the Russian Federation. This regulatory category has been changed several times within a short period. The study evidences that these changes were ontological, resulting from a change in approach to the distinction of waste from other results of economic activity. In practice, these changes introduced new characteristics into the concept of waste, each of which is related to one of the approaches to understanding the essence of waste identified by the authors of the article. The article reveals handicaps of earlier and contemporary approaches to understanding the legal essence of waste in Russia. Based on the results of the study, a new subjective approach is proposed. This approach can serve as a starting point for shaping a new conceptual understanding of waste able to improve environmental law and promote quality enforcement.