Das Projekt "INFRES:Innovative and Effective Technology and Logistics for Forest Residual Biomass Supply in the EU" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Universität Freiburg, Institut für Forst- und Umweltpolitik durchgeführt. INFRES is a three year EU FP7 funded study focused on developing innovative technology and logistics for the forest residual biomass supply chain. The goal is to improve the overall competitiveness of forest residue biomass throughout the EU by accelerating technological (equipment and software) development and demonstrations. Following the directive for renewable energy targets in the EU, forest residue will continue to play an leading role in the renewable energy sector. This overall study focuses on the efficient collection, processing and delivery of woody feed stock for heating, power and emerging bio-refining uses. This research and demonstration project involves 23 partners, including nine research universities and organizations and 14 SMEs FELIS: FELIS will be leading Work Package 3, titled 'Business innovations and adaptations of forestry practices to bioenergy supply'. This research effort first evaluates the future customers and markets of forest biomass to 2050 and then focuses on how existing forestry practices may be modified in order to enhance and improve biomass recovery. Partnering with both software companies and regional bioenergy firms, this work task develops business and service innovations in order to improve organization efficiency, lowering cost and improving service.
Das Projekt "Safe Implementation of Innovative Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (SIINN)" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH - Geschäftsbereich Technologie-Transfer (T) durchgeführt. Objective: The primary aim of the SIINN ERA-NET is to promote the rapid transfer of the results of nano-science and nanotechnology (N&N) research into industrial application by helping to create reliable conditions. In order to strengthen the European Research Area and to coordinate N&N-related R&D work, the project has the aim of bringing together a broad network of ministries, funding agencies, academic and industrial institutions to create a sustainable transnational programme of joint R&D in N&N. The commercial application of nano-materials (NMs) products is increasing rapidly, but one important question, the safety of NMs, still represents a barrier to their wide innovative use. Therefore the first priority of SIINN is to focus on developing a consolidated framework to address nano-related risks and the management of these risks for humans and the environment by investigating the toxicological behaviour of NMs. European R&D activities in N&N remain largely uncoordinated and fragmented, resulting in the sub-optimal use of available resources, such as human resources, research equipment and funding. Since available data on their toxicological behaviour is often scant, unreliable or contradictory, the SIINN Project will focus on ways of remedying this situation. After defining the criteria important for NM toxicology, the environmental health and safety (EHS) information currently available to Europe will be examined. Liaisons will strategically be established and maintained. They will network with organisations looking into the EHS of NMs within Europe and abroad with the aim of continually exchanging information with these. Available information will be examined for their reliability in respect of the assessment of the risks of NMs towards human health and to the environment and major knowledge gaps identified. At least two joint, transnational calls will be organised during the initial lifetime of SIINN in order to fill these gaps.
Das Projekt "Production of activated clays for low-cost building materials in developing countries" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPF), Institut d'Amenagement des Terres et des Eaux (IATE) durchgeführt. Building Materials are a basic need, which is often difficult to meet in developing countries. Concrete is the building material best suited to meet these demands, although cement, the central ingredient is often disproportionately expensive in developing counties. The most promising option to lower costs (and environmental impact) is to blend conventional Portland cement with pozzolanic materials. The aim of this project is to develop technologies appropriate for the small scale, local production of pozzolans from clay (a material widely available) in conjunction with the exploitation of waste biomass for combined heat and power production. The modular concept of a clay activation unit, CAU to be coupled with a biomass boiler, will give the flexibility to adapt the solution to local conditions. We have already demonstrated that relatively common (low grade) clayey soils can be activated to give a pozzolan similar in performance to fly ash (from coal fired electricity production) widely used in the developed world. Results also indicate that it is possible to improve their reactivity by using and optimizing flash calcination, to allow high levels of substitution and very significant improvements in cost/performance ratio. To achieve this we need also to look at the performance of the activated clays in concrete from the point of view of rheology, hardening and durability to enable optimum cost/performance to be achieved according to local materials and applications. The partnership between LMC, EPFL and two academic groups in Cuba has already been established in a previous project. Furthermore, one of the Cuban partners plays a leading role in ECOSUR (a Swiss NGO) which has established workshops, producing low cost building materials, in many developing countries. In the first part of the project significant scientific advances were made, which enabled a huge acceleration in progress, relative to previous work by the Cuban partners alone. In addition, 3 Cuban PhD students spent several months working in the Swiss laboratory and have now returned to Cuba to continue their research. In this project, funding is requested for one PhD student to be based in Switzerland, who will work closely with 3 Cuban PhD Student (funded be the Cuban government). On the Cuban side, funds are requested for essential equipment and to fund the stays of the students at EPFL. Each of the Cuban students will spend 4-8 months working at EPFL during the course of the project.
Das Projekt "Strengthening research capacity and knowledge transfer in Integrated Pest Management at different institutional levels to improve sustainable agriculture in Albania" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von CABI Biosciene, Switzerland durchgeführt. Background: As Albanian agriculture began returning to the private sector in the late 1990s, it was evident that the infrastructure was weak, resulting in low production standards and inefficient use of resources. Despite efforts in the last two decades to restructure and strengthen the agriculture sector, it still remains underdeveloped, characterised by inadequate research, development, transfer of knowledge and modernisation. Farmers still rely on outdated, inefficient pesticide application equipment and often use highly toxic pesticides that are banned in the rest of Europe. Within the agricultural schools and universities, there is a weak capacity for agricultural research and knowledge transfer stemming from several infrastructure-related shortcomings, such as lack of resources and contact with the global scientific community. This constrains the international competitiveness of researchers as well as the training of students in modern pest management approaches. The limited capacity for technology transfer hinders the generation of science-based solutions for local agricultural problems and an ineffective advisory service means that farmers remain disconnected from agricultural research and technology development. Aim: This project aims to build the capacity of relevant institutions in research and knowledge transfer in integrated pest management (IPM); a sustainable pest management approach that reduces overreliance on chemical pesticides and alleviates the negative impacts of agriculture on human health and the environment. The project also aims to strengthen the infrastructure required to improve the quality of agricultural production and enable self-reliance in developing and implementing sustainable IPM solutions. Significance: Through the integration of effective theoretical and practical IPM training into higher education, this project will better prepare students for future employment in an agricultural profession and increase the overall IPM knowledge base within the agricultural sector. The provision of relevant resources and training will enhance capacity for conducting IPM-related research as well as foster integration into the international scientific community. Finally, strengthening the link between research and farmers will provide an effective channel through which to disseminate practical IPM solutions to farmers. In taking an institutional partnership approach, this project will consolidate the linkages between all key IPM stakeholders and create the infrastructure required to promote awareness, communication and institutionalisation of IPM along the whole chain of agricultural research, education, policy and practice.
Das Projekt "Private Sector Sustainable Energy Facility ('TurSEFF') - Project Consultant (Inception Phase)" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von GFA Envest GmbH durchgeführt. Turkey is urgently required to reduce its high energy intensity. Promotion of energy efficiency across economic sectors is one of the operational priorities for the Bank during the initial phase of operation in Turkey. In this context, the EBRD is developing the Turkey Private Sector Sustainable Energy Financing Facility (the 'Facility' or 'TURSEFF'). This will take the form of a framework operation of USD 200 million2 under which credit lines will be provided by EBRD to at least four banks in Turkey for on-lending to (i) commercial energy efficiency investments; (ii) stand-alone small scale renewable energy investments; (iii) buildings sector energy efficiency and renewable energy investments; (iv) energy efficiency and renewable energy in the residential sector; and (v) investment loans for eligible manufacturers, suppliers and installers of energy efficiency and renewable energy technology, equipment and materials. The objective of the Facility is to ensure that Participating Banks (PBs) become familiar with appraising and financing bankable sustainable energy investment projects and that technical expertise is developed to identify and prepare technically and environmentally feasible energy efficiency projects. As a result, the Facility is expected to instigate a self-sustaining market for investment in small and medium sized sustainable energy projects in Turkey. Services provided: Promotion of TurSEFF through targeted public awareness and marketing campaigns; Definition and update of technical criteria of the Facility; Development of a pipeline and portfolio of Sub-projects; Capacity building among local PBs to identify eligible project opportunities (via training of loan officers); Establishment of a database of applicants for Sub-loans and assist both the PBs and the Sub-borrowers; Development of energy efficiency, renewable energy and Buildings Sector Sub-projects; Establishment of an efficient electronic tracking, monitoring and reporting system; Analysis of greenhouse gas emissions and assessment of the scope for a carbon credit transaction; Elaboration of Project Identification Notes (PIN) for carbon projects; Elaboration of an innovative concept for bundling carbon revenues.
Das Projekt "Design and development of the mineral carbonation process for the storage of carbon dioxide captured from point sources" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich, Institut für Verfahrenstechnik durchgeführt. Carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and storage (CCS) is a set of technologies for the capture of CO2 from its anthropogenic point sources, e.g., power plants, its transport to a storage location, and its isolation from the atmosphere. It is an important option to counter the increase of atmospheric CO2 concentrations and therefore to mitigate climate change, while at the same time allowing for the continued use of fossil fuels. Capture of CO2 using existing separation techniques can be applied to large point sources, i.e. power plants or industrial plants; CO2 can be easily transported using pipelines; CO2 storage can take place in geological formations, in the ocean, or by fixing it in mineral carbonates. In this last option, called mineral carbonation, captured CO2 is reacted with metal-oxide bearing materials, thus forming the corresponding carbonates and the solid byproduct silica, i.e. naturally occurring stable solids that would provide storage capacity on a geological time scale. Natural silicate minerals, whose deposits are sufficient to fix the CO2 that could be produced from the combustion of all fossil fuels resources, as well as alkaline industrial wastes can be used in artificial processes that mimic natural weathering phenomena. Although very attractive for the permanence of storage, the application of mineral carbonation is hindered by the slowness of the reaction. To speed up the process kinetics, energy intensive mineral pretreatments are needed. Therefore the technology is not yet ready for implementation. The best case studied so far is the wet carbonation of the natural silicate olivine at high temperature and under high CO2 pressure, which costs between 50 and 100 USDollar/tCO2 stored and translates into a 30-50Prozent energy penalty on the original power plant (Albany Research Center). The objective of the proposed project is to develop an aqueous mineral carbonation process that achieves a cost and an energy penalty, which are 50Prozent lower than the best achieved so far. This would allow mineral carbonation to become competitive with other storage options. We intend to achieve this goal: (i) by building upon the results achieved in four years of research on the fundamental mechanisms of mineral carbonation in aqueous solutions; (ii) by exploiting the equipment and expertise accumulated in many years of research in the field of crystallization and high pressure CO2 technology; (iii) by combining deep fundamental understanding of the process with modeling and optimization (vi) by designing a complete process that includes all steps, and exploits all process integration and intensification possibilities. (...)
Das Projekt "Halogenated Greenhouse Gases by a Swiss MEDUSA" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Eidgenössische Materialprüfungs- und Forschungsanstalt, Abteilung Luftfremdstoffe,Umwelttechnik durchgeführt. The aim of CH-HALOMED is to install a measurement equipment to analyse halogenated greenhouse gases in the laboratory of Empa in addition to the continuously running identical system at Jungfraujoch (MEDUSA). This measurement equipment has been developeed by SIO in La Jolla (California) and is the main instrumentation used world-wide to perform state-of-the art measurements of halogenated greenhouse gases. The scientific goals of CH-HALOMED are to developing analytical methods for new halocarbons used in the industry and in consumer products and advance the sample trapping technology within the MEDUSA. Furthermore, the new system will allow sustaining the intercomparability within the European network: System for Observation of Halogenated Greenhouse Gases in Europe (SOGE) and its extension to China (SOGE-A) and linking of standards and scales at Jungfraujoch to those of AGAGE/NOAA. The instrumentation of CH-HALOMED will be used to analyse atmospheric halocarbons from international projects such as CARIBIC (air sampled by commercial aircrafts) and Antarctic samples by KOPRI (Korea Polar Research Institute) and NILU (Norwegian Institute for Air Research). Finally the MEDUSA system will be used for quantification of Swiss emissions of halogenated greenhouse gases by analysing air samples from the suburban station of Duebendorf (near Zurich). The context of CH-HALOMED is the global effort to assess the contribution of halogenated greenhouse gases to global warming. This is achieved by estimating global emissions of halogenated greenhouse gases (i.e. CFCs, HFCs, SF6) uisng their behaviour in the background air masses and to assess regional sources, using pollution events occuring at measurement sites in different continents. Furthermore, the MEDUSA system is extremely well-suited for detection of newly released industrial compounds in the atmosphere. The applicability of this concept has already been shown by Empa using existing equipments. With the new MEDUSA Empa has the possibility to advance in this field to faster reacting hydrofluorcarbons, which will be produced by industry in the next years. Although these compounds do have a minor influence on the global warming, their degradation products (i.e. fluorinated organic acids) could potentially affect aquatic bio-organisms.
Das Projekt "Large-Area CIS Based Thin-Film Solar Modules for Highly Productive Manufacturing (LARCIS)" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Zentrum für Sonnenenergie- und Wasserstoff-Forschung Baden-Württemberg durchgeführt. Objective: In order for the commercial production of large CIGS modules on the multi-MW scale to be successful, the processes must still be streamlined and optimised taking considering both economical and ecological aspects. This project aims to support the developme nt of this material- and energy-saving thin-film technology so it can gain a foothold in the free PV market. Promising laboratory results will be transferred to large-scale production, where the availability of appropriate production equipment and very hig h material and process yields are of decisive importance. 4 universities, 2 research institutes, and 4 companies will work closely together in order to merge the physical understanding of the processes and the engineering know-how, which are necessary for up-scaling the CIGS technology to a marketable multi-megawatt production volume. We will focus on: (1) very high-quality modules manufactured by coevaporation of CIGS and applying cost-effective methods, ETA up to 14 Prozent on 0.7 m2; (2) the development of Cd-free buffer layers for Cd-free CIGS modules on an area of up to 0.7 m2, ETA up to 12 Prozent; (3) and the development of a mid-term alternative: electrodeposition of low-cost CIS modules with ETA above 10 Prozent (estimated cost about 0.8 E/Wp). We will transfer the Mo back contact sputtering know-how to a specialised European large-area glass coater to provide substrates for both the coevaporation and the electrodeposition approaches. All process developments such as modifications of the back contact, wet- or vacuum-deposited buffer layers, the multi-stage coevaporation of CIGS, or improved Ga incorporation in electrodeposited absorbers will first be tested and evaluated on the laboratory scale. Successful approaches will be up-scaled and transferred to three independ ent commercial CIGS pilot lines located in three different European countries. Novel process and quality control techniques must also be developed and applied to reach these ambitious goals.
Das Projekt "Development of new intermodal loading units and dedicated adaptors for the trimodal transport of bulk materials in Europe (TRIMOTRANS)" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Zentrum für angewandte Forschung und Technologie e.V. durchgeführt. Objective: The constitution of the common European market is accompanied by continuously increasing cross-border goods and passenger traffic. Road transportation is facing a rapidly increasing congestion whilein the contrary the available capacities in railway transportation as well as inland waterwaytransportation are being underutilised. A redistribution of the carriage of goods is urgently needed, but up to now the most important obstacles consists in the incompatible interfaces between the various carriers and the diversity of loading devices being used in the EU. Main objective of the project is the development of new intermodal loading units including devices (ISO-bulk container and Roll-off container), capable adaptors and mobile fixtures suitable for the trimodal transport of bulk and packaged goods at road, railway and inland waterways. Essential element of the project is the design and integration of innovative adaptors for lifting and shifting operations of the loading units. This will lead to an optimum on intermodal compatibility. The goals are in conformity with the aims of the Specific Programme 'Sustainable Surface Transport', research domain 3.16. 'Development of equipment for fast loading / unloading of intermodal transport units'. By application of the new loading units the logistic chain can be set up without changing the loading unit throughout the whole door-to-door transport process. The transhipping procedures do not require crane technology any more and the costs will be reduced substantially. The uniformity of the specialinternal features as well as the compliance with the ISO-container dimensions will contribute to the harmonisation of loading units. The projects includes the development of containers, adaptors and mobile units, test and demonstration of two prototypes and dissemination and exploitation of the results. The consortium consists of ten partner with six SMEs from five countries (G, HU, CH, A,CR)
Das Projekt "Promote innovative intermodal freight transport (PROMIT)" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von PTV Planung Transport Verkehr AG durchgeführt. Objective: PROMIT is the European Coordination Action (CA) for inter-modal freight transport initiating, facilitating and supporting the coordination and cooperation of national and European initiatives, projects, promotion centres, technology providers, research institutes and user groups related to this most complex transport form. The strategic PROMIT objective is to contribute to a faster improvement and implementation of inter-modal transport technologies and procedures and to help promoting inter-modal transport and mode shift by creating awareness on innovations, best practices and inter-modal transport opportunities for potential users as well as for politicians and for the research community. Due to the immense size of the inter-modality domain PROMIT has chosen a matrix organisation, where the domain expertise is treated in five parallel clusters: (1) Organisation and business models, (2) Inter-modal infrastructure and equipment, (3) Information and Communication Technologies, (4) Operation and services.
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