Mobile Treatment Plant Research Articles

Life Cycle Assessment of Concrete Production within a Circular Economy Perspective

The pursuit of sustainability in the construction and demolition (C&D) sector calls for effective decision-making strategies, both in terms of technical and environmental sustainability, capable of mitigating its huge demand for resources and emissions to the environment. The recycling of C&D waste is one of the potential solutions that could reduce the extraction of virgin materials as well as waste generation and landfilling. This study evaluates and compares, by means of the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach, the production of concrete via five different mixtures made up of coarse natural aggregates (NA, primary, virgin materials), and coarse recycled concrete aggregates (RCA, recovered from previous uses). The present study assesses the environmental load of concrete production, by means of mixtures containing only coarse NA and mixtures with coarse RCA produced in fixed and mobile treatment plants, to be replaced with 30% and 100% of coarse NA by weight. The results point out that the use of coarse RCA in concrete mixtures provide greater energy savings and environmental advantages compared to the concrete with only coarse NA; the improvement increases up to a 100% replacement rate by weight of coarse NA with coarse RCA in the mixtures. In this case, the reduction of the impacts is significant for some impact categories such as freshwater ecotoxicity (−63.4%), marine ecotoxicity (−76.8%), human carcinogenic toxicity (−27.1%), human non-carcinogenic toxicity (−77.9%), land use (11.6%), and water consumption (−17.3%), while the total CED impacts decreases by about 10% and that of GWP by 0.4%. Results are discussed in light of the urgent need for advancing circular economy concepts and practices in the C&D sector and decrease the large use of primary resources (in particular sand and gravel). The replacement of NA with RA by weight could contribute to reducing the impacts of the C&DW management and disposal. For this to happen, further improvement of the quality of recycled aggregates is essential for their market development as well as dedicated policies and legislations.

BACK-UP GROUNDWATER SUPPLY SYSTEMS — A NECESSARY SAFEGUARD FOR HUMANITARIAN DISASTERS IN CONDITIONS OF MILITARY AGGRESSION

Many cities in Ukraine use surface centralized water intakes, connected to a single energy network, which are often located at a considerable distance (30-45 km) from settlements (for example, Mykolaiv, Chernivtsi, etc.), which makes the water supply system extremely vulnerable to military aggression and sabotage. Given Russia’s constant claims to our independence, it is clear that a guaranteed supply of drinking water to the population is as important a factor in its security as a strong modern army. Considering the existing means of emergency water supply and water treatment (imported water, mobile treatment plants designed to prepare existing water sources, pumping stations, etc.) we can conclude that the most secure and sustainable source of drinking water is groundwater. For better protection and access to water, even during street fights, it is proposed to equip local well water intakes with autonomous power supply, designed for 2.0-3.5 thousand users, with compact installations for water purification and disinfection. The organization of such a network has at least five problematic components: 1 — resource - the availability of the required amount of water, 2 — quality - the availability of drinking water sources; 3 — safety - sufficiently high protection of the water source from external influences; primarily from qualitative and quantitative depletion and targeted sabotage; 4 — financial and economic; 5 — energy supply. Separate water supply and sewerage networks for drinking and technical water should be introduced. The drinking water supply system should be arranged in the form of a well-protected local water supply, and domestic and technical water supply should be left centralized. Flow rates of drinking water intakes should be calculated based on human needs for drinking water per day: 1.5-2.0 dm3 for drinking plus 4-5 dm3 for cooking. It is proposed to use renewable energy sources for autonomous energy supply of boreholes. The experience of the Russian-Ukrainian war shows that all other options for drinking water supply to the population in conditions of military aggression are less protected, are unstable or temporary and have significant shortcomings.

Technical solutions for cleaning drainage water from irrigated areas

In recent years, there has been an increasing shortage of fresh water suitable for irrigation, which does not subsequently cause soil salinization. To solve the above problem, it is necessary to reconstruct the collector-drainage system into a circulation system. Using the example of open collectors, the dynamics of the chemical composition during the growing season was studied, which showed its dependence on the intensity of irrigation, the salinity of irrigation water, and the seasonal amount of precipitation. A comprehensive assessment of the suitability of water from open collectors for irrigation in terms of salinity, chloride salinity, sodium and magnesium alkalinization and soda formation has been carried out. The necessity of additional treatment of drainage and waste waters to exclude soil salinization has been established. Technical solutions for the purification of the drainage runoff in the stream and with the help of a mobile treatment plant are proposed. A diagram of a removable filter cassette operating in a honeycomb type for water purification in a stream is presented.

Обоснование целесообразности повышения уровня пожаровзрывобезопасности при подготовке резервуаров к ремонтным огневым работам

Introduction. According to statistics, Russia is the third largest oil producer in the world. The processing, transportation and storage of such a large volume of petroleum products requires maintaining the constant operability of tank farms. However, a significant number of accidents and fires are occurring at these facilities, which significantly undermines production and economic stability. Goals and objectives. The need to keep reservoir parks in working condition poses a problem of increasing the level of fire and explosion safety of fire repairs. This type of work is often impossible without the use of equipment that can serve as an open source of ignition, which can cause an explosion. Methods. To justify the need to achieve a fire and explosion-proof state of working conditions when preparing the tank for repair, methods of analysis and classification of data on fires that occurred at oil production and refining facilities not only in Russia, but also abroad were applied. Results and discussion thereof. The article calls attention to the process of pre-repair preparation as one of the main causes of accidents at oil-related facilities. More than 34,7 % of the explosions are related to fire repairs. There is a need to improve the regulatory framework relating to the preparation of tanks for repair, as well as the use of modern mechanized mobile treatment plants and the use of highly skilled personnel for the organization of work. Conclusions. The development of various industries, agriculture, and electric heating systems encourages increased demand for oil refining products for the successful implementation of their activities. This demand increases both the number of oil production, transportation and refining facilities and the number of jobs and personnel to service those facilities. Therefore, fire safety of oil and gas industry facilities is a current problem. Key words: reservoir park, fire, oil product, pre-repair, cleaning, gas-freeing, firing.

Structural analysis of a mobile device for the End–of–Life treatment of photovoltaic panels

The use of photovoltaic panels in Europe led to the installation of about 100GWp in the last decade, an amount which is still growing. The productive life of panels is expected to be between 10 to 30 years, so that in the future a strong demand for systems able to perform their End–of–Life treatment is undoubted. As a consequence of the Directive 2012/19/EU, the decommissioning of photovoltaic plants has to be performed in order to achieve challenging material recycling and recovery targets. Small size, mobile treatment plants have been proposed to reduce the investment needed for their installation in comparison with large industrial ones.A prototype system for the treatment of photovoltaic panels is presented; it is designed to be transported within the limits of ordinary freight transport vehicles. All the systems included in the plant have been organized in a production line mounted in three containers. Due to functional reasons, the containers have been design and built specifically for these use, providing the necessary integration between the installed machinery and of auxiliary systems such as dust collection system, sound insulation and vibration absorbers. For the verification of resistance and stiffness of the system – which differs from regular freight containers – an adaptation of suitable standards is proposed. After the definition of appropriate loads for the case study, the structures of the containers are analyzed using Finite Elements software. The analysis shows that due to the characteristics of the application the structure is not suitable for general containers use, but – considering the limitations of the application in terms of transportation needs – the results can be considered acceptable.

L’Aquila Smart Clean Air City: The Italian Pilot Project for Healthy Urban Air

Exposure to atmospheric pollution is a major concern for urban populations. Currently, no effective strategy has been adopted to tackle the problem. The paper presents the Smart Clean Air City project, a pilot experiment concerning the improvement in urban air quality. Small wet scrubber systems will be operating in a network configuration in suitable urban areas of L’Aquila city (Italy). The purpose of this work is to describe the project and show the preliminary results obtained in the characterization of two urban sites before the remediation test; the main operating principles of the wet scrubber system will be discussed, as well as the design of the mobile treatment plant for the processing of wastewater resulting from scrubber operation. Measurements of particle size distributions in the range of 0.30–25 µm took place in the two sites of interest, an urban background and a traffic area in the city of L’Aquila. The mean number concentration detected was 2.4 × 107 and 4.5 × 107 particles/m3, respectively. Finally, theoretical assessments, performed by Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) codes, will show the effects of the wet scrubber operation on air pollutants under different environmental conditions and in several urban usage patterns.

US experiences in water management of shale gas developments

More than 1,700 drilling rigs are operating in the US, with more than half in Texas. The avid and dry Permian Basin in southwest Texas is one of the most prolific oil and gas basins in the US. Vertical drilling to depths of 4,000 m, with horizontal laterals 2,000 m, is common. The fraccing of a horizontal well requires large amounts of water. In areas that completely depend on groundwater for frac water, the demand for the resource is high. Water transport and treatment costs can threaten the viability of even the best of projects. The volume of water required for different horizontal frac operations, changes depending on the formation, frac solutions, and lateral frac distances. Discoveries are being made that have determined that larger diameter horizontal fracs are yielding more product, but they require even more water. The oil and gas industry is beginning to realise that groundwater drilling and resource management can make or break an oil and gas project. In these areas where water availability depends initially on groundwater supply, a complete understanding of the available groundwater resource is critical. Economically viable solutions can ultimately be a combination of new wells, treated water, moveable water distribution systems, mobile treatment plants, surface storage, and deep injection of brine fluids. In this extended abstract, the experiences gained on existing shale gas developments in the US are used to address specific challenges faced in Australia.

METHOD FOR CHOOSING THE TECHNOLOGY FOR PURIFYING PERIODIC WASTEWATER DISCHARGE

It has been found out that for purifying periodic waste-water discharge in Russia and abroad the modular fixed and mobile treatment plants of various types are mainly used. These plants combine the units of mechanical, biochemical and physic-chemical treatment being differed by special features of equipment and constructive design, materials used, power consumption, level of automation. The choice is more often made according to ecology-economic principles.

Micro hydraulic mobile water treatment plant: application in the field

The micro hydraulic mobile water treatment plant is an emergency water treatment unit which is fast to deploy, simple to operate and has a low energy and chemical consumption. The mobile treatment plant has been operated successfully after several natural disasters in Indonesia. Currently more than 30 installations are used on a daily basis in Indonesia. Water quality control is done manually on a daily basis and a large database of results is available. These water quality data have been compared with computer model water quality calculations in order to optimize coagulant dosage.

A New Approach to Sustainable Canal Sediment Management in Scotland

Abstract British Waterways is a public corporation which owns and manages 3220 km of canals and navigable rivers in Britain. Maintaining a safe navigation channel requires the regular removal of large quantities of accumulated sediment (150,000 tons per annum)Please note tons in this paper refers to metric tones, i.e., 1000 kg. which is often contaminated with a “cocktail” of organic and inorganic materials derived from both current and former industrial and agricultural activities. Over the past 15 years, British Waterways has developed and refined a sediment sampling and analysis protocol which takes account of the behavior of contaminated compounds in aqueous environments. This protocol has been developed in consultation with waste and soil chemistry experts and the statutory regulators to accommodate the changing legislative requirements over this period. The protocol facilitates the assessment of hazardous status and selection of appropriate uses for the sediment post removal. A menu of sediment reuse, including soil improvement and creation on agricultural land and recreational areas, production of soil alternatives, landfill capping material, and use as an engineering material is under development to reduce the dependency on landfill. Some of these options may require the sediment to undergo some form of treatment. Until recently, treatment options in the United Kingdom were limited. Now with the requirement for waste to be pretreated before being landfilled, treatment sites and mobile treatment plants are more common. Parallel to this process, British Waterways keeps a watching brief on proposed changes to relevant waste management legislation across the UK and lobbies, where appropriate, for changes which promote sustainable management of canal sediments. Review of, and involvement in, longer term catchment management policies and legislative controls through, inter alia, the European Water Framework Directive, aim to reduce the sediment management burden in the long term. A review of the European Waste Framework Directive is ongoing, which may bring legislative changes related to disposal and reuse of sediments, or both. A series of case studies in the Lowlands and Highlands of Scotland is presented to illustrate the practicalities of this process.

Oil spill waste treatment in the Kymenlaakso region after a ship accident

The significance of the Gulf of Finland, which is part of the Baltic Sea, as an oil transportroute has increased rapidly in recent years. Approximately 140 million tons of oil wastransported through the Gulf of Finland in the year 2006. The amount of transport has doubledin a few years. At the same time, the accident risk has increased. The narrowness and thefragmented coastline make the Gulf of Finland extremely vulnerable in an oil spill situation.There is as yet no comprehensive plan in Finland for how to treat oil spill waste after a largescale accident. The aim of this study was to find out treatment methods and capacities in theKymenlaakso region for the oily waste collected from the coastline after a large oil accident inthe Gulf of Finland.This study presents the principles of the treatment methods of oil spill waste and thelimitations of the methods in handling the waste. The article also includes a background studyof the treatment of wastes collected from the coastline from previous major oil accidents.The possibilities of different companies to treat oily waste in the Kymenlaakso region werestudied. Detailed information was collected by interviewing the companies' workers. 19 000 tof crushable oily equipment and organic matter mixed with normal solid fuels can be burnedannually in the fluidized bed furnaces of regional power plants. I 200 t of homogenized oilyorganic matter can be burned annually in the rotary kiln of a factory which produces expandedclay (LECA). The region's burning capacity will increase when the municipal solid wasteincineration plant that was under construction during the study is ready and the oil spill wastecan be burned on its grate. Oily soil can be treated with composting, washing, soil vapourextraction and stabilization with bitumen. Mobile treatment plants suitable for oily waste,such as thennal desorption plants, can also be transported to the region.