Raw Material Inputs Research Articles

Heavy Metal Contamination in Compost. A Possible Solution

With the objective of improving qualitative characteristics of compost, an analytical survey was carried out in a composting plant in Lombardy (Italy) in all process of production, with particular reference to heavy metals (HM) Zn and Pb. The investigation was principally aimed to study the contents and the accumulation of HM during composting process and to identify a technological solution for reducing HM content in the final product. A merceological analysis of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) input to the composting plant, a chemical analysis of the organic fraction of MSW after mechanical separation, and a comparison with values reported by some authors, showed that Zn and Pb are significant contaminants, even though concentrations have recently decreased in comparison to previous years. On the basis of Zn and Pb content in raw material input to the plant, an estimate of the theoretical value of Zn and Pb in produced compost was made. The comparison of theoretical values with the real ones, experimentally determined, confirmed that at the end of composting process the concentration is 2.6 times the initial value for Zn and 1.6 times the initial value for Pb, as suggested by some authors. Finally, the analytical investigation of Zn and Pb contents in the compost refining line, carried out by means of sieving tests, showed that by eliminating a fraction of compost < 1 mm, both Zn and Pb, which is the more critical one, can be largely removed, without a substantial yield loss (only 10% of the final product is eliminated).

Successful Small-Scale Manufacturing from Small Islands: Comparing Firms Benefiting from Locally Available Raw Material Input

This paper draws on an European Commission-supported Leonardo da Vinci Vocational Training pilot project-in-progress to review the prospects for SMEs in small island territories. It, focusesing on manufacturing firms, and deliberately selects those which conform to a tough set of conditions of “success”: strong and consistent export orientation; local ownership; locally developed or adapted technology; and a workforce of up to 50 employees. This paper is based on “best practice” data collated specifically from five such “successful” firms, each based in one of five European island regions, manufacturing a product which benefits from locally available, raw material input. Research findings suggest that idiosyncratic features associated with smallness and islandness identity facilitate business success in such locations in spite of various well-documented structural handicaps. These features include a strong branding of the product with the respective island and associated characteristics island; free riding on island tourism; limited domestic local firm rivalry; an appreciation of social capital and the “quality of island life”; and the luring of islanders back to their island in order to become local entrepreneurs.

A firm level analysis of trade, technology and employment in South Africa

AbstractThis paper uses two firm level surveys, the National Enterprise (NE) survey and the Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan Area (GJMA) survey, to explore the implications of globalization for employment in South Africa. These relationships are explored using cross‐tabulations and estimated labour demand functions. The paper finds that rising import penetration negatively affected employment in large firms, but not small firms. Relatively large declines in employment also occurred within export firms, despite improvements in export competitiveness and export growth through trade liberalization. Finally, the study finds that skill‐biased and trade‐induced technological change, as reflected in increased use of computers, foreign investment and the importation of raw material inputs, have raised the skill intensity of production. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.

Raw material procurement, industrial upgrading and labor recruitment: intermediaries in Indonesia's clothing industry

In the literature on global commodity chains (GCCs) the organization of global clothing production has been largely described as a production system of a buyer-driven governance structure. However, despite the fact that buyer-driven commodity chains have been described as relatively loose and short-term, the commitment of buyers towards their individual producers can vary significantly. This largely depends on the way in which buyers are linked to their external production networks by intermediaries such as representative offices or agents. The integration of these intermediaries has a high potential to influence the ways in which the required raw materials inputs are procured and the individual production processes are organised. In addition, the analysis of labor relations and labor recruitment has been largely ignored in previous studies on GCCs. However, cultural and historic setting have a strong influence how intermediaries organize labor recruitment. Therefore, this paper aims to unravel the role of intermediaries on clothing production in terms of raw material procurement, industrial upgrading and labor recruitment.

What is going up in smoke?

The requirements that a business needs to consider when building a wood panels manufacturing plant are much the same as they have been for decades, but today there is also the need for multiple environmental studies and permits. These are costly and time consuming additional expenses that often are the longest lead-time items on any project. Most industrialized countries have legislation in place to limit and control the negative impact that emission of, pollutants may have on the environment. This paper discusses what is actually happening inside wood drying plants, and the prerequisite conditions for genesis of pyrolytic products relative to the operational parameters, such as choice of input raw materials, driers design and operational regime, choice of fuels for the heat generation and how these factors influence production of stack emission. The characterization of emission condensate by analytical methods is described, and survey of emission control system in use worldwide is described, and means of investigating what may be the optimum design for the control of emission is discussed. Alternate uses of utilizing the condensate, other than burning, are presented for consideration.

Materials Flow Accounting in Sweden Material Use for National Consumption and for Export

SummaryThis article presents Swedish economy‐wide material flow accounts for the period 1987‐1998. It also shows possibilities for enhancing the international comparability of aggregated data on material use, by distinguishing between materials used for consumption and export purposes. The direct material input (DMI) is used as an aggregate measure to estimate the amounts of natural resources (except water and air) that are taken from nature into the economy within a year, including imports to and production within the region in question. The division of materials used for consumption and export purposes avoids double counting trade flows when DMI is applied to a group of countries.The annual DMI in Sweden for 1997‐1998, including production and imports, amounts to 24 to 27 metric tons per capita (t/c). The fossil fuel input varies only slightly over the period, from 3.2 t/c in 1991 to 3.6 t/c in 1996, a level deemed unsustainable by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency. The input of renewable raw materials varies between 8 and 9 t/c. Ores and minerals vary between 11 and 15 t/c. The DMI puts Sweden above estimates made for Germany, the United States, and Japan and in the same range as the Netherlands. The differences in these values can mainly be explained by the relative importance of exports as compared to the size of the economy and by the variation in system boundaries for the data on natural resources. The system boundaries and data sources for natural resources need to be further defined to make the measures fully comparable. Around 5 t/c is exported, whereas the rest, around 20 t/c, is national consumption.The aggregate direct material consumption (DMC), which is the DMI minus exports, communicates the magnitude of resource use. Comparisons of the input with solid waste statistics indicate that quantity of waste (excluding mining waste) in Sweden is equal to about 10% relative of the total resource use. Material collected for recycling by the waste management system is equal to about 5% of the amount of virgin resources brought into society each year.

Integrated Environmental Engineering for Resource Minimized Production

Many environmental problems caused by humans have to be solved by the application of modern, sophisticated concepts and future oriented technologies. During the production chain the raw material passes several process stages associated with energy consumption and the formation of gaseous, liquid and/or solid residuals at each stage. Every reduction in residue signifies a saving in the input of valuable and expensive raw material. The technologies for the treatment of end-of-pipe wastes are the so-called “additive environmental technologies”.

Sol-gel Cyclic Self-Production of α-Al2O3 Nanoseeds as a Convenient Route for the Low Cost Preparation of Dense Submicronic Alumina Sintered Monoliths

The excellent properties of α-Al2O3 are extremely dependent on the microstructural characteristics of the ceramic materials, which stress out the importance of designing new processing routes and/or improving the existing ones to reach a rigorous microstructural control on the final material. Here, a novel sol-gel self-production method for α-Al2O3 seeds and their application in-situ is demonstrated. The authors show that within an α-Al2O3 seed production cycle with input of a low-cost raw material, pseudoboehmite is adequate for the production of high-densified submicronic α-Al2O3 monoliths.

Solid-State Recycle Processing for Magnesium Alloy Waste via Direct Hot Forging

A solid-state recycle processing for magnesium alloy waste has been developed by combining cyclic plastic working and direct hot forging under the short thermal explosion. AZ91D machined chips, which were employed as wasted materials in this study, were consolidated to the green compact with fine microstructures via bulk mechanical alloying (BMA) process, where the compaction and forward extrusion in the closed die were repeated at room temperature. To keep fine microstructures after hot forging, that is, to prevent from the matrix softening due to the grain and/or intermetallic growth, the thermal damage on the green compact in pre-heating before forging was controlled by using the infrared gold image rapid heating furnace. The hot forged AZ91D alloy showed superior mechanical properties such as hardness and ultimate tensile strength (UTS) to the cast one used as input raw materials. The same effects were recognized in the case of wasted Al–Si alloys via this process. The developed solid-state recycle processing revealed a possibility to improve the mechanical properties of the consolidated light alloys even in employing their wasted materials.

Heavy metals and rare earth elements in phosphate fertilizer components using instrumental neutron activation analysis

The technique of instrumental neutron activation analysis was applied as a sensitive nondestructive analytical tool for the determination of heavy metals and rare earth elements in phosphate fertilizer ingredients. The contents of heavy metals Fe, Zn, Co, Cr and Sc as well as rare earth elements La, Ce, Hf, Eu, Yb and Sm were determined in four samples representing the phosphate fertilizer components (e.g. rock phosphate, limestone and sulfur). These samples were collected from the Abu-Zabal phosphate factory in El-Qalubia governarate, Egypt.The aim of this study was to determine the elemental pattern in phosphate ingredients as well as in the produced phosphate fertilizer. Fair agreement was found between the results obtained for the standard reference material Soil-7 and the certified values reported by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The results for the input raw materials (rock phosphate, limestone and sulfur) and the output product as final fertilizer are presented and discussed.

Land Use Impacts of Agricultural Intensification and Fuelwood Taxation in Uganda

<i>The market and land-use impacts of agricultural intensification and fuelwood taxation in Uganda have been estimated using a computable general equilibrium model. Across-the-board yield growth causes total agricultural output to rise and commodity prices to fall. Forest area increases, as does land planted to cash crops. But other uses of rural natural resources decline, including the area planted to food crops. Taxing raw material inputs to fuelwood production leads to an increase in price and a decrease in consumption and production. However, forest area does not expand. Instead, it contracts a little.</i> (JEL Q11, Q23)

REGIONAL VARIATIONS AND CHANGES IN INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTIVITY IN CHINA, 1980–1995

Industrial productivity is a measure of the efficiency of aggregate input (labor, capital, and raw materials) relative to output. If the economic objective of regional development is primarily to increase per capita income, its success depends upon increases in productivity. Despite the rapid growth of industrial output in China, there are increasing signs of a decline in the efficiency and profitability of industry, especially in state-owned firms. This has significantly changed the spatial distribution of regional industrial productivity. Most eastern coastal provinces have experienced faster decline than the rest of the country. As a result, the traditional east-west division is no longer the best description of the spatial pattern of productivity. Using data from the second and third censuses of industry, this research reveals regional disparities and changes in both labor and capital productivity in China during the 15-year period from 1980 to 1995. This paper also investigates factors that influence regional industrial performance.

Monetary policy for an open economy: an alternative framework with optimizing agents and sticky prices

The 'new open-economy macroeconomics ' seeks to provide an improved basis for monetary and exchange rate policy through the construction of open-economy models that feature rational expectations, optimizing agents, and slowly adjusting prices of goods. This paper promotes an alternative approach for constructing such models by treating imports not as finished consumer goods but rather as raw-material inputs to the home economy's productive process. This treatment leads to a clean and simple theoretical structure that has some empirical attractions as well. A particular small-economy model is calibrated and its properties exhibited, primarily by means of impulse response functions. The preferred variant is shown to feature a pattern of correlations between exchange-rate changes and inflation that is more realistic than provided by a more standard specification. Important recent events are interpreted in light of the alternative models.

Liberation and Separation of Valuables from Building Material Waste

In general a recycling process starting with development, planning, production, utilization and disposal of a product, e.g., of a building, during its lifetime may be regarded as a system of material cycles. The main object is to minimize the input of raw materials and the output of waste for every stage of a building. These material cycles may be designed by reprocessing the building material waste to valuables of high quality. To approach this aim a joint research project dealt with the liberation and separation of aggregates (d = 2–16 mm) from concrete waste. The liberation is accomplished by a pneumatic cannon to simulate the stressing in impact crushers. With this cannon spherical concrete samples (d = 150 mm) are comminuted. The comminution is evaluated by the liberation grade. Fully liberated, partially liberated and non-liberated particles are distinguished. The experiments show an unexpectedly high liberation grade of up to 95% with a comparably small specific energy consumption of about 1 kWh/t. For separating both fully liberated and partially liberated aggregate, a pilot scale zigzag apparatus consisting of a zigzag channel, an air cyclone, a blower, a filter and a feeding system was used. If the diameter of the particles is kept nearly constant (e.g., by sieving) a multi-stage density separation in a turbulent cross-flow channel can be carried out. The separation performance may be evaluated by means of the separation function or grade efficiency curve, respectively. For the partially liberated aggregate a comparably good grade sharpness of about 0.74–0.84 is obtained for a 15-stage zigzag apparatus with different particle size fractions and particle contents in air.

Decision Support Systems for Small Scale Agroindustrial Investment Promotion in Rural Areas

AbstractA series of decision support systems (DSS's), developed as part of a government program to promote the implementation of small scale agroindustrial projects in rural areas, is described. The DSS's constitute an alternative to the use of printed agroindustrial profiles to disseminate information on technical and economic aspects of such projects. Users have access to information on the potential projects and can evaluate their feasibility considering their own data and relevant assumptions. Information is presented in hypertext and graphical formats, and in conventional data tables. The hypertext files provide descriptions concerning the technological processes, related legislation and potential markets, while graphical images present plant floor plans and 3‐D views of facilities and equipment lay‐out. Data is available on several items, including technical coefficients, equipment costs, raw material and other input costs, interest rates, other loan conditions, and product mixes and prices. They can be easily changed by the user, so as to better reflect specific conditions. Economic‐engineering models allow the computation of standard financial evaluation indicators. Sensitivity analysis is also performed. Results can be either displayed on screen, saved or printed. 15 systems have been developed, covering a wide array of agroindustrial projects. Usability tests were performed with a sample of potential users. Results were extremely favorable, confirming the initial hypothesis of the potential of the proposed approach as an effective means to promote agroindustrial investments.

Use of extended exergy analysis to evaluate the environmental performance of machining processes

Traditional applications of exergy analysis have focused upon the optimization of energy use in thermal and chemical processes. This paper introduces a form of exergy analysis in which the methodology is extended to consider the characteristics of material flows in a process as well. This new form of analysis, termed extended exergy analysis (EEA), is shown to be particularly useful in valuating the environmental performance of industrial processes. EEA differs from traditional theory in its requirement that all ground states be defined such that they are en6ironmentally acceptable. Environmental acceptability can be determined using a number of health, occupational and ecological criteria. By integrating biological considerations into the existing physical definition, EEA provides manufacturers and regulators alike with relevant information regarding the costs of achieving environmentally benign production. These costs are valued consistently for both raw material and energy inputs and product and residual outputs, affording degrees of transparency and objectivity not present in other valuation methodologies. Application of the technique to a case study involving the machining of aluminium is developed.

Producing, providing, trading: manufacturing industry and sustainable cities

This paper describes the innovations required from companies, local authorities and national governments to make manufacturing industry contribute to sustainable development in cities. It argues that the urban dimension has often been overlooked in discussions on industry and sustainable development, with most attention focusing on the roles of the individual firm and/or national policy in achieving change. The paper then presents a series of examples to demonstrate how industry will need to become responsible not only for the social and environmental performance of its own production activities but also for the sourcing of raw material inputs “upstream” and for the emissions and wastes that its products generate “downstream”.

Product heterogeneity and the relationship between retail and farm prices

This paper examines the relationship between the price of an aggregate of agricultural outputs and raw material price in two situations: (i) when product heterogeneity within the product group arises from aggregation over heterogeneous commodities of different competitive industries, and (ii) when product heterogeneity arises from product differentiation among similar products in a monopolistically competitive industry. We show that a positive relationship between the aggregate price spread and the agricultural raw material price could result from input substitution between the raw material input and other inputs in response to changes in the relative raw material price. Indeed, within a composite product group there is likely to be significant input substitution, in response to changes in relative input prices, because of the increased opportunities for efficiency gains from altering the composition of the heterogenous commodities within the composite product. Therefore, when analysing aggregate price spread behaviour of agricultural commodities using data on composite product, one should be cautious in attributing observed markup pricing behaviour to market power resulting from imperfect competition.

Ökobilanzen von thermochemischen Wärmebehandlungsverfahren

The use of the technology evaluation methods, which approach at the analysis of material and energy flow and assess environmental effects, will be increased for analyzing the environmental acceptability of products and processes. One of these relative evaluation methods is represented by the life cycle assessment. This method makes it possible to evaluate the effects on the environment caused by products, processes or services. Furthermore potentials of optimization like reduced raw material and energy inputs or the use of alternative materials can be pointed out. One simplifying assessment method is based on the concept of cumulative energy demand where the entire demand, valued as primary energy, is being stated. At best all phases of the life cycle, it means from the primary production up to disposal or recycling, will be analyzed with regard to their primary energy input and aggregated to an identification number. For the gas nitriding and their upstream and downstream processes the results of the analysis of cumulative energy demand are shown. The parameters heating systems and ovenlevels were varied.

Eco-thermodynamics: economics and the second law

The laws of physics, especially the first and second laws of thermodynamics, have significant implications for economic theory. The major implications of the First Law (conservation of mass/energy) are straightforward and have been discussed at length elsewhere. In brief, raw material inputs to economic processes are not `consumed'. Having been extracted from the environment in the first place, they eventually return to the environment as wastes. The economic implications of the Second Law (entropy law) are far more subtle. There is considerable literature, initiated by the work of Georgescu-Roegen, on the supposed constraints on economic growth imposed by the fact that economic processes utilize `low-entropy' raw materials (fossil fuels and high grade metal ores) and discard `high entropy' wastes. However, as a practical matter the flux of available low-entropy energy (exergy) from the sun is extremely large and certainly adequate to sustain economic activity in the solar system indefinitely, even though fossil fuel and metal ore stocks may eventually be exhausted. It is argued in this paper that the real economic significance of the Second Law lies in the fact that exergy is: (i) not conserved; and (ii) is a useful common measure of resource quality, as well as quantity, applicable to both materials and energy. Thus, exergy can be used to measure and compare resource inputs and outputs, including wastes and losses. This is potentially important in itself. Moreover, since exergy is not conserved it is truly consumed (i.e. used up) in economic processes. Hence, exergy is no less a `factor of production' than labor or capital. This fact has strong implications for economic growth theory, especially with regard to assessing the role of technical progress.