1,720,984 research outputs found
A Review on Life Cycle Assessment of the Olive Oil Production
No full textOlive oil is one of the most globally recognized high-value products, with 4 million hectares cultivated in the Mediterranean area. The production process involves many stages: farming, extraction, packing, and waste treatment. Each one of these stages should present critical points for the environmental impacts, and for this reason, the entire sector is adopting mitigation strategies to begin to be more sustainable. The mitigation actions’ efficiency should be evaluated through environmental indicators or environmental impact assessment by Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). This review aimed to carry out an overview of recent papers (2011–2021) involving an LCA study in the olive oil supply chain by giving a framework of what is included in LCA studies and highlighting the main contributors to environmental impacts. The main scholarly literature databases have been exploited, highlighting a great increase in publications, especially from the producer countries. The review results reflect the heterogeneity of the production process. However, the use of pesticides, fertilizers, water, and fuel for machinery heavily weigh on the farming stage’s environmental im-pact. Finally, special focus was given to key elements of LCA studies in the olive oil supply chain, such as functional unit, system boundaries, impact categories, calculation method, and software widely used
Hydroponic cultivation: life cycle assessment of substrate choice
No full textPurpose Nowadays, hydroponic cultivation represents a widely used agricultural methodology. The purpose of this paper is to study comparatively on hydroponic substrates. This study is highlighting the best substrate to be involved in hydroponic systems, considering its costs and its sustainability. Design/methodology/approach Seven substrates were evaluated: rock wool, perlite, vermiculite, peat, coconut fibres, bark and sand. Life cycle assessment (life cycle inventory, life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) and life cycle costing (LCC)) was applied to evaluate the environmental and economic impact. Through the results of the impacts, the carbon footprint of each substrate was calculated. Findings Perlite is the most impacting substrate, as highlighted by LCIA, followed by rock wool and vermiculite. The most sustainable ones, instead, are sand and bark. Sand has the lower carbon footprint (0.0121 kg CO2 eq.); instead, bark carbon footprint results in one of the highest (1.1197 kg CO2 eq.), while in the total impact analysis this substrate seems to be highly sustainable. Also for perlite the two results are in disagreement: it has a high total impact but very low carbon footprint (0.0209 kg CO2 eq.) compared to the other substrates. From the LCC analysis it appears that peat is the most expensive substrate (euro6.67/1,000 cm(3)), while sand is the cheaper one (euro0.26/1,000 cm(3)). Originality/value The LCA and carbon footprint methodologies were applied to a growing agriculture practice. This study has highlighted the economic and environmental sustainability of seven substrates examined. This analysis has shown that sand can be the best substrate to be involved in hydroponic systems by considering its costs and its sustainability
Sustainable method for food quality assessment. lca study on biogenic amines determination
No full textBackground: quality assessment can inform us about the nutritional values of food, but also about its origin (i.e. cultivation techniques) and organoleptic properties. Analysis of foods is continuously requesting the development of more robust, efficient, sensitive, and cost‐effective analytical methodologies to guarantee the safety, quality and traceability of foods in compliance with legislation and consumers demands. Biogenic amines are a class of molecular marker, used to recognize and to identify food origin, vegetables maturity, cultivation techniques and storage time. Since sustainability is an actual aim of the scientific research, even “green” analytical determinations in food are going to be developed. Green chemistry introduced several points like less waste, low energetic costs, raw materials made by renewable sources. Objectives: The aim of the present work is to compare two different HPLC method for determinate biogenic amines in food matrix. Life Cycle Assessment methodology was applied to evaluate the environmental effects/impacts of the two differents scenario. Moreover, the application of the Life Cycle Cost analysis allowed to evaluate costs in the second scenario. Methods: High Pressure Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) allow to identify and quantify biogenic amines in food matrices. Two different HPLC methods were compared by Life Cycle Assessment and Life Cycle Cost methodologies. These methodologies permit to quantify the environmental negative output, pointing out opportunities to reduce input and output of the system and to choose the most cost-effective option. The environmental variables were calculated by using Simapro 8 software (ReCIPe 2016 method). Results: The new analysis methodology allows to use just 20.6% of resources. The optimized methodology saves more than 50% with a payback period of 10 analysis. Conclusions: The implementation of new methods of analysis improves the efficiency and sensitivity, pointing out sustainability topic in food quality assessment field
Life cycle assessment of photovoltaic implementation: an Italian case study
Full text linkThe energy efficiency is the possibility and ability to carry out a production process consume with the involves of less energy and minor environmental impact. Life Cycle Assessment is one of the major tools involved in the economic, social and environmental evaluation. The aim of this work is the LCA application to an Italian company that provides to install a photovoltaic plant for the energy self-maintenance, in order to break down costs and environmental impacts. The photovoltaic business can be an interesting solution especially for companies which consume more energy during the day. In the case study was highlighted that an average of 400.00 €/month was spent, equal to about 900 kWh / month. The company installed a 10 kWp photovoltaic system and with this implementation the energy consumption diminished of 84% and the costs of 57%
Caratterizzazione chemiometrica di composti bioattivi nelle nuove cultivars di pomodori del Lazio: Bamano, Dolce Miele e Confettino Rosso.
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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
Magnetic Nanoparticles as an Efficient Tool for Analyte Extraction: Challenges and New Opportunities
No full textNanomaterials are introducing changes in many industrial areas, allowing someparticular characteristics such as the type ofmaterial, and the size, shape, morphology, chemical composition and molecular configuration of the materials to be managed. Moreover, the use of nanomaterials has expanded rapidly, from the first applications in the materials field, to multiple sectors such as medical and pharmaceutical, biological, environmental, electronic and recently agro-food
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Tracciabilità degli olii extravergine di oliva attraverso determinazioni di composti bioattivi
No full textL’olio di oliva è un prodotto consumato in tutto il mondo la cui produzione è legata fortemente all’area del
mediterraneo. Le diverse aree sono contraddistinte dalla presenza di molte varietà di piante di olivo che
testimoniano una biodiversità radicata nei territori. L’Italia è caratterizzata dalla più alta biodiversità della
pianta di olivo al mondo. La filiera dell’olio nel sistema agroalimentare italiano è di forte impatto
economico, sociale ed ambientale per natura e dimensioni, circa l’8% della superficie agricola utilizzata
riguarda la coltivazione dell’olivo. Lo sviluppo di questo settore ha portato a privilegiare qualità e
biodiversità. Le differenti varietà dimostrano adattabilità alle condizioni pedoclimatiche e assicurano
produzione sostenibile e tipicità del prodotto. Tuttavia in Italia la produzione non riesce a soddisfare il
fabbisogno per i consumi interni e per le esportazioni. L’UE, principale produttore a livello mondiale con
l’80% della produzione, promuove la produzione e il consumo di olio di oliva di qualità. Recentemente alla
luce della normativa UE relativa all’indicazione obbligatoria in etichetta dell’origine delle olive (Reg. UE
2095/2016), la tracciabilità ricopre un ruolo fondamentale per differenziare gli oli extra vergini di oliva e
garantire al consumatore origine e qualità. In quest’ottica in questo studio è stata valutata la qualità di oli
EVOO di diversa provenienza territoriale. La determinazione quantitativa ha riguardato l’analisi di acidi
grassi: linolenic acid (18:3 Omega 3), linoleic acid (18:2 Omega 6), palmitoleic acid (C16:2), palmitic acid
(16:0), oleic acid (18:1) mediante cromatografia liquida ad alta risoluzione ( HPLC-UV) e parametri di
qualità previsti dal Consiglio Oleico Internazionale (COI)
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