Repozytorium AGH
Repozytorium instytucjonalne Akademii Górniczo-Hutniczej im. Stanisława Staszica w Krakowie
Zbiory i Kolekcje
Publikacje i materiały zdeponowane w Repozytorium AGH.
Ostatnie wpływy
Prezentacja
Otwarty dostęp
Marine plastic waste management according to circular economy concept through the interdisciplinary and international cooperation
Magdziarz, Aneta; Wang, Jiawei; Wu, Chunfei; Sullivan, James; Mlonka-Mędrala, Agata
Wydział Inżynierii Metali i Informatyki Przemysłowej
Global plastic production is currently at a rate of 200,000 tonnes per year, and it is projected to increase to 33 billion tonnes per year by 2050. Approximately 10% of the plastic produced ends up in the seas and oceans. Plastic pollution in marine and coastal environments is a growing concern worldwide. Sources of this waste include shipping transportation, coastal tourism, marine aquaculture, and fishing. It is estimated that at least 14 million tonnes of plastic enter the oceans and seas annually. Furthermore, beach litter, which often consists of plastic packaging, lids, bottles, and cigarette butts, poses significant challenges.
The G20 countries signed an Action Plan on Marine Litter in Germany in 2017, recognizing the urgent need to prevent and reduce marine litter to preserve human health as well as marine and coastal ecosystems. This highlights the need to reduce the amount of plastic waste in the sea, ocean, and coasts and find solutions to manage the existing waste. Proper management of marine waste can help stop the flow of waste in line with a closed-loop economy.
Reducing and stopping plastic waste from reaching the oceans is crucial for achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The CUPOLA project is the international, interdisciplinary, and intersectoral research and innovation project aiming to find solutions to this global problem. The main goal of the CUPOLA project is to establish long-term research cooperation between institutions with complementary expertise to design and develop carbon-neutral, scalable, and socially acceptable methods to sort and convert plastic waste into valuable chemicals and materials. The originality of CUPOLA lies in the collaborative network among experimentalists, theoreticians, and industrialists. Key technologies in the project include waste sorting and pre-treatment methods. Novel pneumatic systems are developed for the separation of waste plastics, effectively separating the plastic waste into PET-rich, PO-rich, and PA-rich streams.
The successful separation of plastic waste is crucial for the subsequent mechanical and chemical recycling processes. Thermochemical processes such as catalytic pyrolysis, catalytic gasification, aminolysis, and hydrothermal carbonization are applied to convert feedstocks into valuable chemicals and materials. For instance, the PET-rich stream will be transformed into bitumen additives through aminolysis, while the polyolefin-rich stream will be converted to benzene, toluene, and xylenes (BTX) via catalytic pyrolysis, and to H2 and carbon nanotubes through catalytic gasification. The project will involve process modeling, techno-economic analysis, and life cycle assessment to provide essential information about the economic viability and environmental impact of these processes. Additionally, renewable energy sources and carbon capture technologies will be integrated into the final design of the CUPOLA processes to ensure carbon neutrality. This project has the potential to bring together a wide range of research and industry groups in chemistry, chemical engineering, civil engineering, mechanical engineering, environmental science, and computer science to collaborate on the recycling of marine plastic waste. The success of the project will contribute to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 3, 12, and 14 by reducing plastic pollution in the oceans and converting waste into value-added products.
Numer czasopisma
Geology, Geophysics & Environment
2024 - Vol. 50 - No. 4
Artykuł
Otwarty dostęp
Arsenic in water from the Bystre Thrust-Sheet (Outer Carpathians, Poland): Geological and environmental implications
(Wydawnictwa AGH, 2024) Aleksander-Kwaterczak, Urszula; Andrzejak, Jakub; Świerczewska, Anna; Lukaj, Konrad
The article focuses on the physicochemical parameters of water in streams, springs, boreholes, and intakes from the Bystre Thrust-Sheet (the Silesian Nappe, Fore-Dukla Zone), the only area in the Polish segment of the Outer Carpathians where arsenic minerals occur. These waters are characterized by the presence of arsenic, lithium, mercury, barium, strontium and usually high CO$_{2}$ concentrations. The study aimed to determine the range of the geochemical anomaly of arsenic in water. An important aspect was to determine the origin of As and link its presence with the content of ions of other chemical elements dissolved in water. The sampling points were designated based on geological maps with a particular emphasis on the occurrence of tectonic dislocations and the configuration of the river network. In the selected places 47 samples of water were taken, and various elements were determined. Then, the range of occurrence of various types of water that differed from the average concentrations of selected ions was analysed. The potential relationship between the chemical composition of water and the geology of the Bystre Thrust-Sheet was also discussed. The high concentrations of arsenic were found only in springs and boreholes. In flowing waters, these concentrations quickly decreased as due to dilution or precipitation and binding with the solid phase. Relatively high (max. 378.72μg/L) arsenic concentration, which significantly exceeded the permissible value (50μg/L), was detected in the Bystre 1 borehole. This water has a pH value of 7.85 indicating its alkaline nature. When considering water use for health purposes, it is necessary to monitor its arsenic content. The conditions prevailing in waters, mainly high pH, favour the immobilization of metals in sediments and suspended matter. The lower concentrations of arsenic in flowing waters may be attributed to the strongly calcareous nature of the Cieszyn beds which act as a natural barrier, limiting the migration of arsenic beyond the Bystre Thrust-Sheet.
Artykuł
Otwarty dostęp
Deposit potential and distribution of cobalt and nickel in the sludge of chromite placer mining process at Nui Nua ultramafic massif area, Thanh Hoa province, Vietnam
(Wydawnictwa AGH, 2024) To, Xuan Ban; Nguyen, Khac Giang; Tran, Van Duc; Le Tien, Dung
Chromite placer is widely distributed in Quaternary sediments located around the Nui Nua ultramafic massif in Thanh Hoa province, Vietnam. The long-term mining works targeting chromite placer in this area have left a huge amount of waste sludge, up to tens of millions of tons. The paper aims to introduce a deposit potential and distribution of cobalt- and nickel- bearing minerals within the waste sludges generated from the chromite placer mining operations around the mines situated near the Nui Nua ultramafic massif in Thanh Hoa province, Vietnam. Based on field investigations and sample analyses, two groups of waste sludge have been identified: clay-sized sludges and debris waste sludges. The former group is plastic bentonite clay, distributed in depressions and low terrain, and has low contents of cobalt (0.06%) and nickel (0.67%), which is of impractical significance for the recovery purposes of cobalt and nickel. The latter group is usually distributed in relatively high terrain, forming waste sludge ranging from several thousand to hundreds of thousands of tons in volume. These deposits include rock fragments, mineral fragments derived from the Nui Nua ultramafic massif, along with dark spherical nodules rich in goethite, limonite, and Fe-Mn hydroxides, which contain relatively high contents of cobalt (up to 0.75%) and nickel (up to 2.43%) in the waste sludge and chromite placer mines. The cobalt and nickel are mainly concentrated in Fe-Mn nodules made up of goethite, limonite, todorokite, and other Fe-Mn hydroxides. Data from chromite placer explorations, combined with the study results, provide reliable insights into the distribution of cobalt and nickel resources within the waste sludges and chromite placer deposits in the Co Dinh area (northeast of Nui Nua ultramafic massif) and Mau Lam (southwest of Nui Nua massif), Thanh Hoa province. A preliminary estimation of potential resources of Co and Ni metals have been made for the debris waste sludges at Co Dinh and Mau Lam areas based on the ratios of debris particles in the sludges and their contents of Co and Ni along with published resources and reserves of chromite placer ores.
Artykuł
Otwarty dostęp
Structure recognition and fluid flow potential based on well data and geological field investigations. A case study of the Istebna Beds, Silesian Unit, Carpathians
(Wydawnictwa AGH, 2024) Krakowska-Madejska, Paulina I.; Puskarczyk, Edyta; Starzec, Krzysztof; Jarzyna, Jadwiga A.; Stadtmüller, Marek
Facies were recognized based on the results of well logging data, using these measurements and conducting a comprehensive interpretation. This was done by first using shaliness (volume of shale) as the main parameter for a geological profile division into petrophysical lithofacies before secondly calculating Flow Zone Index (FZI), utilizing porosity and permeability estimated from well logging interpretation and defining Rock Types on the basis of FZI frequency distributions. FZIs were also determined according to porosity and permeability from laboratory measurements whenever the results were available. Descriptions of cores and cuttings together with the results of geological field investigations were the basis for lithofacies determination. Maps of average porosity, permeability, and FZI values were constructed for the study area. Three types of facies data and maps of reservoir parameters were used to support the recognition of geological structures and their assessment of potential for fluid movement in the rock formation. The facies analyses were performed on the example of the Istebna Beds of the Silesian Unit in the Carpathians.