1,722,722 research outputs found

    Development and characterization of brewers’ spent grain-based materials

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    Received 18 March 2025 Received in revised form 9 July 2025 Accepted 10 July 2025 Available online 5 August 2025 Keywords: Brewing by-product Circular economy Compo-stability Disintegration Recycling Sustainability 1. Introduction Packaging aims to enclose and protect a wide range of indus- trial and consumer goods, including agricultural commodities and food and drink products, during their distribution and storage and until their use. The global packaging market has been growing rapidly, reaching values of approximately 974 billion US dollars in 2018, with more than 15 billion related to food packaging (Bayram et al., 2021; FAO, 2014). Moreover, concerns about the environ- mental impacts of packaging waste are also increasing, stimulating more restrictive regulatory requirements aimed at reducing, reusing, or recycling packaging materials. Approximately 31 million tons of packaging waste were produced in the European Unit in 2017, which was made of paper/cardboard (41%) and plastic (19%) (Eurostat, 2020). Sustainability is increasingly a priority for packaging manu- facturers, who are moving from traditional to more eco-friendly * Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (A. Baiano). Brewers’ spent grain (BSG) is the main by-product of brewing processes. As a lignocellulosic material, BSG is suitable for producing disintegrable composite materials and packaging. Our research aimed to develop BSG-based formulations with and without corn starch that are suitable for producing objects through thermomoulding. The thermomoulding temperature was fixed at 200 ◦C, and the thermo- moulding time ranged from 4 to 30 min. The effects of the thickness (2, 5 and 10 mm), addition of corn starch and BSG type (W (wet), U (dried and unground), P (dried, unground and hot-water treated before use) and M (dried and milled)) on the physical and mechanical properties, absorption capacity, disin- tegration degree and solubility of the tray materials were investigated. All formulations were charac- terized by high water absorption (>71.73%), weight loss (46.73%—67.58%) and solubility (30.78% —44.68%). The density, breaking strength and resistance to penetration decreased as the thickness increased, whereas no differences in the flexural strength were detected. The addition of starch reduced both the density and water absorption percentage and increased the penetration strength. With respect to the BSG state, the use of W-BSG resulted in the highest resistance to flexion (0.11 N/mm2) and the lowest resistance to penetration (2.15 N/mm); the use of M-BSG resulted in the highest resistance to penetration (6.36 N/mm). Principal component analysis highlighted that most of the materials devel- oped had physical and mechanical characteristics that made them different from each other and therefore suitable for different uses

    Proper Orthogonal Decomposition for simulating the alongwind Equivalent Static Force of long-span bridges

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    This paper develops and discusses a method by which it is possible to evaluate the Equivalent Static Force (ESF) of wind in the case of long-span bridges. Attention is focused on the alongwind direction. The study herein carried out deals with the classical problems of determining the maximum effects due to the alongwind action and the corresponding ESFs. In order to derive the wind-induced effects acting on the deck, the Gust Effect Factor (GEF) technique is extended to long-span bridges. By adopting the GEF technique, it is possible to define the ESF that applied on the structure produces a specified maximum effect. Nevertheless in the case of long-span bridges the application of the ESF associated to a specified maximum effect does not furnish the correct maximum values of other wind-induced effects acting on the deck. Based on this observation, a new technique is proposed which allows to define an ESF able to simultaneously reproduce the maximum alongwind effects of the bridge deck. The proposed technique is based on the GEF and the Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD) techniques and represents a valid instrument of research for the understanding of the wind excitation mechanism

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed

    Pericolosità da sprofondamenti antropici e naturali nell’ambiente carsico della Regione Puglia

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    Il territorio della Regione Puglia risulta in gran parte costituito da rocce solubili, soggette pertanto all’azione di dissoluzione del carsismo, che determina lo sviluppo di estesi sistemi di grotte naturali, distribuiti pressoché sull’intero territorio regionale (Gargano, Murge e Salento). Alla notevole diffusione dei processi carsici va aggiunta la presenza di una miriade di cavità scavate dall’uomo nel sottosuolo, in epoche diverse e con finalità estremamente diversificate: da semplici spazi utili per le attività agropastorali quali depositi per derrate alimentari, fosse granarie, cantine e frantoi, a luoghi di culto di notevole importanza storico-archeologica, a veri e propri insediamenti civili, sino a cave e miniere di notevole estensione. Nell’insieme, il sottosuolo pugliese è intensamente caratterizzato da cavità ipogee, per gran parte delle quali si è persa nel tempo la memoria storica, e di cui pertanto non si conosce l’esatta localizzazione, né tantomeno le condizioni di degrado e/o di instabilità dei materiali
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