Das Projekt "E-waste South Africa: Technology development for advanced treatment of e-waste in South Africa as a model for similar emerging economies" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Kopacek KG durchgeführt. Over the last 20 years basic treatment technologies for e-waste have been developed and implemented across the European Union, aiming both at the recovery of resources (urban mining) and pollution control. Current research activities are exploring more advanced technologies focussing on recovery of valuable (precious and critical) materials from printed circuit boards, fluorescent powder, batteries etc. by means of specific processes, mainly pyro- and hydrometallurgy as well as combining existing technologies like dismantling, fragmentation and separation. BOKU has developed a Material Composition Database for WEEE to characterise the material input into treatment facilities. ISL has developed a hydro-metallurgic technology for the treatment of specific e-waste components, e.g. fluorescent powder from lamps and CRTs and a mobile HydroWEEE plant is in place. One of the outputs is oxalate rich in rare earth materials, which is currently sold for further processing to Solvay Rhodia in France. Despite the widely discussed recovery of Rare Earth Elements, Solvay Rhodia, the only European plant that processes a mix of rare earth from recycled materials, announced end of January 2016 that because of the low market prices it will stop its liquid-liquid separation by the end of 2016 and therefore will stop buying recycled rare earth mixes soon. Mintek in South Africa has a pilot plant facility available for liquid-liquid separation of rare earth materials that could be used to evaluate the feasibility of rare earth recovery and provide for design parameters for a larger scale plant which could potentially be built at a lamp recycling facility in South Africa and which could also treat recovered rare Earth materials from Europe. In South Africa, research on e-waste is in its early stages; however an industrial e-waste management plan is in preparation and it is anticipated that the plan, which includes an extended producer responsibility (EPR) component, will be ready for implementation within the near future. The aim of the project is to explore the necessary adaptation of the treatment chain (collection, pre-treatment, advanced treatment) in order to enable the implementation of advanced treatment technologies in the specific context of South Africa as a model for similar emerging economies in Africa, Asia and South America. In addition the feasibility of an integrated process (ISL's hydrometallurgy and Mintek's liquid liquid separation) for European and South African applications will be explored.
Das Projekt "Access to health care in persons with multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS): A pilot study" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Fachkliniken Nordfriesland gGmbH durchgeführt. Access to health care in persons with multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS): A pilot study. Background: The aim of this pilot study was to investigate the access to health care in persons with multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) and to examine the feasibility of an online-questionnaire based study including members of self-help groups. Methods: The study design is that of a case series for a pilot study. A questionnaire containing questions with respect to access to health care services and satisfaction or problems with them, was send per email to the chairmen/ chairwomen of three self-help groups (SHG) in northern, western and southern Germany with the request to forward the questionnaire online to all members with email. Results are descriptive and given as means (diameter) and frequencies (percent). Results: Response rates were only sufficient for evaluation in the northern SHG (48 percent), where n=25 questionnaires were included into analysis. Of all members of the northern SHG only 24 percent were accessible per email. Time between onset of symptoms and first diagnosis of MCS were 12.8 years. The mean age at onset of symptoms was 34.2 years. Before first diagnosis of MCS the participants had had diameter=74.8 visits at doctors and diameter=2.2 inpatient stays at clinics to find a cause for their symptoms. At the time of the inquiry only 40percentof the participants were in the care of practitioners with a specialization in environmental medicine. The waiting periods for an appointment with a specialist for environmental medicine were long (diameter=7 weeks) and the distances far (diameter=333 km). The understanding of health care personnel in other than environmental medicine care units for intolerance reactions as regards fragrances, pharmaceuticals and foods, respectively, seems poor. The satisfaction of the participants with their access to health care on a scale of 0-10 was diameter=2.6. Of the participants 60 percent had low grade satisfaction (0-3), 24 percent had medium grade satisfaction (4-6) and 8percent had high grade satisfaction with their access to health care. Conclusion: The access to health care in members of a SHG with MCS is characterized by severe undertreatment due to long periods of time between onset of symptoms and diagnosis, poor understanding of intolerance reactions in health care personnel and restricted availability of environmental medicine care units. The satisfaction of participants with their medicinal treatment is understandably low. In respect to the feasibility of a large online study to investigate the access to health care with members of self-help groups we conclude that this is not possible, because of low percentage of members accessible per email in addition to low response rates.
Das Projekt "New sustainable concepts and processes for optimization and upgrading municipal wastewater and sludge treatment (NEPTUNE)" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Eidgenössische Anstalt für Wasserversorgung, Abwasserreinigung und Gewässerschutz durchgeführt. The scope of sewage treatment is changing: Up to date municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) were seen as an end-of-pipe treatment just before discharge, having the aim to avoid eutrophication and hygienic health hazard in surface water. Due to the global demographic trends as well as new legislations (e.g. the Water Framework Directive, WFD) increased focus is put on quantity and quality of effluents: WWTP are more and more seen as interface between sanitation and environment, delivering resources to the environment or human activities (recharge of drinking water reservoirs, recycling of nutrient, efficient energy use). This focus shift has implications on the quality goals set for WWTP products: land requirement, effluent N, P load, effluent pathogen load, energy optimization. New focus: nutrient recycling, micropollutants: ecotoxicology of the effluent energy production. NEPTUNE is focusing on technology solutions allowing to meet present and future standards via upgrading of existing infrastructure (new control strategies with online sensors; effluent upgrading with oxidation, activated carbon or wetland treatment; sludge processing for safe nutrient recycle) as well as via new techniques (fuel cell applications; new oxidative agents; polymer production from sludge). By including pathogen and ecotoxicity aspects into life cycle assessment studies (LCA), the project is helping improve the comparability of various technical options and propose a suitability ranking. The new focus given by the WFD and the emerging interest on organic (eco-)toxic compounds requires characterizing treated effluent and treatment technologies concerning ecotoxicologic aspects and micropollutants. The project is contributing to this discussion by ecotoxicity assessment and micropollutant fate studies.
Das Projekt "Reducing the AOX concentration in the effluents of directly and indirectly discharging paper mills to comply with statutory AOX limits" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Papiertechnische Stiftung München durchgeführt. Initial situation/Problem area: Default Paragraph Font; Updated measures for AOX reduction suitable for all relevant paper grades in Germany are to be developed to comply with current and future AOX limits. As the final result, a simulation model will be created which enables paper mills to forecast the impact of individual measures on the AOX load of their effluents. Objectives/Research results: The new minimum requirements for the discharge of paper mill effluents define much more stringent limits, especially concerning the parameter AOX. Compared to former regulations, the specific load limits were lowered by 90 percent down to only 10 g/t for all paper grades. The most important AOX sources in paper mill effluents are: certain biocides, chlorine, chlorine dioxide for fresh or circuit water treatment, fibrous raw materials, wet strength agents based on epichlorohydrin and odour reducing compounds splitting off halogens. Due to the developments in the past decade the as-is shares of the different AOX sources have to be investigated to define actual and future measures for further AOX reduction in the effluents. Furthermore many highly loaded biological stages (anaerobic systems, moving bed biofilm reactors) have been installed in the meantime. Their potential of AOX degradation has not been investigated yet. The conventional AOX reduction by flocculation/precipitation is no longer to date or enforceable, due to economical (treatment costs of up to 2 Euro/t paper) and ecological reasons (salinisation). Especially indirectly discharging paper mills are facing severe 'AOX problems' in some cases due to the treatment of municipal effluents and are forced to minimise AOX already in their incoming flows. Application/Economic benefits: Updated measures for AOX reduction suitable for all relevant paper grades in Germany are to be developed to comply with current and future AOX limits. As the final result, a simulation model will be created which enables paper mills to forecast the impact of individual measures on the AOX load of their effluents. Anwendung/Wirtschaftliche Bedeutung: SME can save only a comparatively small amount of between 0.25 and 0.80 Euro/t on their waste water tax because this tax amounts to maximally 10 percent of their overall fees. The greater benefit of the expected results is the resulting avoidance of conventional techniques for advanced AOX elimination. Those can cause costs of up to 2 Euro/t, at higher effluent amounts even up to 5 Euro/t. Above all, the integrated approach to reducing AOX in effluents shall help to avoid these additional expenses and to safely comply with actual as well as future AOX limits.
Das Projekt "Verbesserte Anwendung von Niedertemperatur-Plasmaverfahren für die Abluftreinigung" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Dörken GmbH & Co. KG durchgeführt. Im Vorfeld des Projekteswurden verschiedene Abluftreinigungsverfahren entsprechend dem Stand der Technikuntersucht. Nach einem Vergleich verschiedener Abluftreinigungsverfahren wurde die Vorteilhaftigkeit des Niedertemperatur-Plasmaverfahrens (NT-Plasmaverfahren) für den hier vorliegenden Anwendungsfall (Herstellung einer Dachunterspannbahn (Folie) für die Bauindustrie) ersichtlich. Da Erfahrungswerte, aber auch theoretische Grundlagen des NT-Plasmaverfahrensfür diesbezügliche Anwendungen nicht vorlagen, wurden Analogien zu bis dato vorliegenden Erfahrungen mit plasmatechnischen Anwendungen zur Luftreinhaltung hergestellt. Hierbei konzentrieren sich bisherige NTP-Anwendungen in anderen Industriebereichen ebenfalls auf die Behandlung von gering konzentrierten, leicht oxidierbaren und geruchsintensiven Emissionen. Zur Absicherung der Übertragbarkeit wurden Voruntersuchungenmit einer kleintechnischen Versuchsanlage vorgenommen. Aufgrund der im Vorfeld erhaltenen positiven Ergebnisse erfolgte der Entscheid zur weitergehenden Untersuchung der technischen Anwendbarkeit des NTP-Verfahrens auf das bei Firma Dörken gegebene Emissionsgeschehen. Dies erfolgte durch die Installation einer Versuchsanlage im halbtechnischem Maßstab. Durch die Förderung des EU LIFE-Programmskonnte folgend die Realisierung des technischen Verfahrensermöglicht werden. Es erfolgte hierbei die Errichtung einer katalysatorgestützten NT-Plasmaanlage, bestehend aus einer Plasmagenerationsstufe zur Erzeugung von chemischen Radikalen. Dieser ist eine Katalysatorstufe nachgeschaltet. Mit dieser Grundanlage werden die entsprechenden Langzeituntersuchungen, wie auch Optimierungen des Verfahrens durchgeführt. Förderungswürdiger Inhalt des Projektes im Sinne von LIFEist weiterhin die Realisierung eines Energieverbundes. Durch diesen Energieverbund wird der Betrieb der Gesamtanlage, bestehend aus Produktionsanlage und Abluftreinigung, im Vergleich zur bisherigen Betriebsweise ohne Abluftreinigung, nicht verteuert. Zur Umsetzung dieses Energieverbundes wird insbesondere Abwärme nach der Plasmastufe in die Trockner zurückgeführt. Weitere Optionen zur Abwärmenutzung werden mit untersucht.
Das Projekt "Long Time Treatment Against Varroa jacobsoni with the Aid of Formic Acid^Traitement longue duree a l'acide formique pour lutter contre Varroa jacobsoni (FRA)" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Eidgenössische Forschungsanstalt für Milchwirtschaft durchgeführt. Le diffuseur permet de lutter efficacement contre Varroa dans toutes les conditions rencontrees en Suisse et evite les effets secondaires de l'acide formique sur les abeilles. L'integration de ce nouveau mode d'application de l'acide formique dans un concept de lutte alternative est realise. (FRA)
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