1,720,967 research outputs found
Life cycle assessment of a new feed production obtained by wasted flour food collected from the distribution and retail phases
No full textEvery year in Emilia Romagna more than 10000 tons of food are wasted during the retail and distribution phase. Landfill is nowadays the most adopted end of life, but working on a specific sorting system it would be possible to separate food from packaging and recover both of them in the most preferable way. In this case, Food Waste could be valorized by means of different technologies, such as anaerobic digestion, composting, and animal feed production. In this study the environmental performance of two Food Waste valorization scenarios using the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology has been analyzed. For both scenarios the Floor Food Products Fraction, like bread, pasta and biscuits, was valorized to produce animal feed. The environmental impacts of these new scenarios were compared with the impacts caused by the traditional feed production. The new scenarios lead to benefit for all the considered impact categories
Three-dimensional cfd simulation of a "steam water spray" retort process for food vegetable products
No full textThis work aims at simulating a retort sterilization process of flexible packaging, performed in autoclave. ANSYS CFD software has been used in this study to simulate the heat transfer inside the retort chamber. Flexible packaging filled with a pumpkin soup has been modelled. Three-dimensional (3D) geometrical configuration of the equipment has been designed and then simulated to evaluate the sterilization level achieved by each packaging inside the retort chamber. In particular, the internal temperature of the product situated in the cold spot of the chamber has been monitored during 5 min of the process (after reaching 85°C inside the product) in order to monitor the time/temperature trend. Experimental tests have been finally performed to validate the simulation model of heat exchange. The sterilization process takes place in a retort chamber by means of "overheated water sprayed" at 403 K and a pressure of 5 atm. Results show a good agreement between the simulated results and the real retort process and confirm the potential value of the simulation model to evaluate the process performance
Comparative life cycle assessment of different packaging systems for coffee capsules
No full textThe aim of this work is to compare the environmental impact of three different packaging systems for coffee capsules, which can be used in the same coffee machine. A comparative Life Cycle Assessment has been performed considering the following three types of coffee capsules: 1. Compostable coffee capsules packaged into a multichamber PET tray. 2. Capsules made of aluminium and packaged into cardboard boxes. 3. Capsules made of polypropylene with an aluminium top lid, singularly packaged in modified atmosphere into a bag made of multilayer film of aluminium and polypropylene. The functional unit considered is a coffee capsule. To evaluate the environmental impact, the EPD (Environmental Product Declaration) method is used. This work shows that it is possible to reduce the environmental impact of compostable capsules packaged in PET tray by two ways: by using a less polluting starch polymer and by producing biogas instead of compost from the organic waste. With these improvements, the compostable coffee capsule in PET tray results the less damaging packaging system for all categories except than for the ozone layer depletion and the fossil fuels depletion
CFD Analysis of Coffee Packaging in Capsules using Gas Flushing Modified Atmosphere Packaging
No full textThe aim of this work is to analyze, by means of CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics), the gas flow in a packaging machine used to fill polymeric capsules with coffee. The final goal is to optimize the geometric shape of some mechanical components in the machine’s sealing station in order to reduce the inert gas consumption achieving an O2 residual which is constantly equal or below 1 % by mass in the center of the capsule. The fluid domain has been obtained starting from the 3D CAD model of the sealing station of the packaging machine. The CAD software SolidWorks has been used to design the system, while Ansys CFX 14.5 software has been used for the CFD analysis. The CFD model has been validated by comparing its results with those obtained by experimental tests. The modified solution allows reducing the average O2 residual from about 3 % to less than 1 %
Life cycle assessment of a new feed production obtained by wasted flour food collected from the distribution and retail phases
No full textThis study assesses the suitability of flour food products wasted during the distribution phase to be used as raw material for the production of animal feed. Landfill is nowadays the most adopted end of life option for flour food products. Nonetheless, by setting up a specific sorting system, it would be possible to separate the wasted food from its packaging and to recover both of them. In this latter case, food waste could be better valorised, by diverting it to alternative channels, such as anaerobic digestion or animal feeding. In this study, the environmental performance of two valorisation scenarios for floor food waste intended to be used to produce animal feed were analysed using the Life Cycle Assessment methodology. The new scenarios are compared with one another and with the traditional feed production. Results of the study show that the new scenarios lead to environmental benefits for all the considered impact categories
DEM Simulation of the Evolution of an Unstable Rock Face: A Modelling Procedure for Back Analysis of Rockslides
No full textThe evolution of unstable rock slopes is a discontinuous process that is typically characterised by a succession of discrete events, each one giving rise to a new configuration of the rock face. If these events are put in a wider time frame, they can be seen as a local step contributing to the overall process. The advances in recognition systems, such as laser scanning or georadar techniques, allow to build numerical models of higher and higher precision, where the topographic and geostructural configurations may be precisely reconstructed. These improved capabilities open the possibility for defining highly representative numerical models that can be used for back analysis purposes or the design of risk mitigation works. One possible drawback of such approaches is that they superimpose structural and topographic data, whose compatibility is not independent of the mechanical behaviour of the rock mass. In fact, the initial geometry depends on the (usually complex) rock slope history, which has a twofold relationship with the whole set of structural and mechanical features of the rock mass. In order to investigate this point, a series of distinct element analyses of an unstable rock face located in Bolzano province is performed. The model is characterised by a very simple geometry, and slope evolution is studied by adopting the strength reduction technique. Structural and mechanical information is obtained from an extensive in situ survey. The aim of the simulations is to show how a model based on the available geomechanical information and a minimum amount of topographic data can be used to reproduce the main topographic features of the rock slope, and to perform a back analysis of a selected case history
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe 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
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