Membrane Engineering for Green Process Engineering

Green process engineering, which is based on the principles of the process intensification strategy, can provide an important contribution toward achieving industrial sustainable development. Green process engineering refers to innovative equipment and process methods that are expected to bring about substantial improvements in chemical and any other manufacturing and processing aspects. It includes decreasing production costs, equipment size, energy consumption, and waste generation, and improving remote control, information fluxes, and process flexibility. Membrane-based technology assists in the pursuit of these principles, and the potential of membrane operations has been widely recognized in the last few years. This work starts by presenting an overview of the membrane operations that are utilized in water treatment and in the production of energy and raw materials. Next, it describes the potential advantages of innovative membrane-based integrated systems. A case study on an integrated membrane system (IMS) for seawater desalination coupled with raw materials production is presented. The aim of this work is to show how membrane systems can contribute to the realization of the goals of zero liquid discharge (ZLD), total raw materials utilization, and low energy consumption.     

Reverse metallurgical engineering towards sustainablemanufacturing of vehicles using Nb and Mo alloyed highperformance steels

Steel is the dominant construction material for most industrial goods such as equipments, structures, buildings or vehicles. Although there have been great
advances in steel technology over the last 4 decades, the industry currently faces serious sustainability challenges with regard to energy conservation, reduction of CO₂ emission and a generally more efficient use of resources. The principal connotation in this respect is increasing steel strength allowing to reduce component weight. However, it is also necessary considering in how far the modified steel properties interfere with typical manufacturing techniques
established in the processing chain. A feasible method in this sense is a reverse approach starting from detailed knowledge of the manufacturing process and translating it back into the most suitable metallurgical and microstructural design of steel. Modifying steels towards better manufacturing performance typically involves innovative alloying and metallurgical processing concepts. Niobium and molybdenum are two of the most powerful alloying elements in helping to adapt microstructures and properties with regard to downstream manufacturing processes. This paper will highlight several examples how a reverse metallurgical engineering approach can be successfully applied to optimize the efficiency of subsequent manufacturing processes with a focus on the automotive industry.     

工业绿色发展工程科技战略及对策

本文针对钢铁、有色、石化、化工、建材、造纸等流程制造业及所涉及行业的通用机械和某些高耗能的工业装备的绿色发展问题开展研究,分析了绿色发展、循环发展、低碳发展之间的内涵与关系,分析研究了当前以六大流程制造业为代表的流程制造业和工业装备领域所处现状和面临的挑战,以及对绿色发展具有的重要影响;并结合六大流程制造业能源消费总量和污染物排放总量的峰值分析,提出了工业绿色发展工程科技战略的思路和目标,强调流程制造业应在拓展功能基础上融入循环经济,并提出了若干引领性重大工程和相应的示范带动项目以及一系列关键技术。     

工业废渣资源化及其可持续发展(Ⅱ)——与水泥混凝土工业相结合走可持续发展之路

介绍了我国水泥混凝土工业的发展现状,论述了工业废渣的综合利用只有与水泥混凝土工业紧密结合才能走自身可持续发展之路,同时强调水泥混凝土依靠工业废渣提高耐久性的必要性.此外,还提出了将工业废渣作为辅助性胶凝材料制备绿色高性能水泥混凝土的方法和各种注意事项.     

Combining LCT tools for the optimization of an industrial process: material and energy flow analysis and best available techniques

Life cycle thinking (LCT) is one of the philosophies that has recently appeared in the context of the sustainable development. Some of the already existing tools and methods, as well as some of the recently emerged ones, which seek to understand, interpret and design the life of a product, can be included into the scope of the LCT philosophy. That is the case of the material and energy flow analysis (MEFA), a tool derived from the industrial metabolism definition.This paper proposes a methodology combining MEFA with another technique derived from sustainable development which also fits the LCT philosophy, the BAT (best available techniques) analysis. This methodology, applied to an industrial process, seeks to identify the so-called improvable flows by MEFA, so that the appropriate candidate BAT can be selected by BAT analysis. Material and energy inputs, outputs and internal flows are quantified, and sustainable solutions are provided on the basis of industrial metabolism.The methodology has been applied to an exemplary roof tile manufacture plant for validation. 14 Improvable flows have been identified and 7 candidate BAT have been proposed aiming to reduce these flows.The proposed methodology provides a way to detect improvable material or energy flows in a process and selects the most sustainable options to enhance them. Solutions are proposed for the detected improvable flows, taking into account their effectiveness on improving such flows.     

Industrial ecosystem indicators—direct and indirect effects of integrated waste- and by-product management and energy production

In an idealised industrial ecosystem (IE), firms and organisations utilise each other's material and energy flows including wastes and by-products to reduce the system's virgin material and energy input as well as the waste and emission output from the system as a whole, and contribute to sustainable development (SD). IE complements the more conventional individual flow, product, process, organisation, individual actor or sector-focused environmental management approaches and tools with network or systems level approaches. The first research objective of this paper is to construct indicators for IE. The second task is to test the use of these indicators with "what if?" material and energy flow scenarios for the energy and waste system of Satakunta region in Finland including 28 municipalities. Using literature analysis as a source, we arrive at environmental indicators of carbon dioxide (CO₂) equivalents, and at economic indicators of fuel, energy and waste management costs and revenues. The social indicators show the employment effects of the waste management system. The scenarios analyse the current situation (0-scenario) against alternative situations in the future. The future scenarios are developed according to the known and anticipated trends in international and national policy and legislation. The indicator application in the scenarios produces social, environmental and economic effects of waste management in four categories: direct negative, direct positive, indirect negative and indirect positive. Industrial ecosystem theory emphasises the utilisation of wastes as a resource with value alongside the objective of reducing waste. Therefore, the indirect positive effects of waste management are important, as well as the conventional focus of waste management, which has usually been on direct positive effects. The main difficulties in our argument are the system boundary definition, the qualitatively different nature of environmental, economic and social effects and indicators as well as the lack of qualitative or interview data on the preferences and interests of the actors involved.     

Benchmarking energy utilization in cement manufacturing processes in Nigeria and estimation of savings opportunities

Nigeria is a leading producer of cement in Africa. Because cement production is energy intensive, with significant adverse impacts on the environment, an apparent need exists to assess the Nigerian cement industry to identify energy use mitigation options. The potentials for reducing energy use in typical Nigerian cement manufacturing plants, through the implementation of available energy efficiency measures, were assessed in this study, alongside the attendant costs of implementing those measures. To achieve these, using numerous globally available energy efficiency technologies and measures, energy conservation supply curves were constructed for three Nigerian cement manufacturing plants which operate on wet, semi-wet, and dry cement manufacturing processes, respectively. Comparisons with global best and Chinese benchmark plants with respect to thermal and electrical energy consumption were also made. The comparisons showed that, with respect to the global benchmark plants, thermal energy savings of between 19.83 and 52%, and electrical energy savings of between 35.23 and 43.10%, were possible. With respect to the Chinese benchmarks, thermal energy savings of 10.74–47.32%, and electrical energy savings of 20.95–30.17%, could be achieved. The plants considered performed significantly less than either of the benchmarks in terms of both thermal and electrical energy usage. The energy conservation supply curves for the plants showed that implementing the cost-effective energy efficiency measures could lead to energy savings of about 235,038, 237,913 and 374,055 GJ/year, for the wet, semi-wet, and dry cement manufacturing plants, respectively. Furthermore, technically feasible efficiency measures could yield energy savings of about 250,272, 259,795 and 395,447 GJ/year, respectively. Achieving these savings will improve profitability in the Nigerian cement industry and make the unused energies available for utilization in other sectors of the Nigerian economy.     

Industrial waste recycling strategies optimization problem: mixed integer programming model and heuristics

Manufacturers have a legal accountability to deal with industrial waste generated from their production processes in order to avoid pollution. Along with advances in waste recovery techniques, manufacturers may adopt various recycling strategies in dealing with industrial waste. With reuse strategies and technologies, byproducts or wastes will be returned to production processes in the iron and steel industry, and some waste can be recycled back to base material for reuse in other industries. This article focuses on a recovery strategies optimization problem for a typical class of industrial waste recycling process in order to maximize profit. There are multiple strategies for waste recycling available to generate multiple byproducts; these byproducts are then further transformed into several types of chemical products via different production patterns. A mixed integer programming model is developed to determine which recycling strategy and which production pattern should be selected with what quantity of chemical products corresponding to this strategy and pattern in order to yield maximum marginal profits. The sales profits of chemical products and the set-up costs of these strategies, patterns and operation costs of production are considered. A simulated annealing (SA) based heuristic algorithm is developed to solve the problem. Finally, an experiment is designed to verify the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed method. By comparing a single strategy to multiple strategies in an example, it is shown that the total sales profit of chemical products can be increased by around 25% through the simultaneous use of multiple strategies. This illustrates the superiority of combinatorial multiple strategies. Furthermore, the effects of the model parameters on profit are discussed to help manufacturers organize their waste recycling network.     

A review on powder-based additive manufacturing for tissue engineering: selective laser sintering and inkjet 3D printing

Since most starting materials for tissue engineering are in powder form, using powder-based additive manufacturing methods is attractive and practical. The principal point of employing additive manufacturing (AM) systems is to fabricate parts with arbitrary geometrical complexity with relatively minimal tooling cost and time. Selective laser sintering (SLS) and inkjet 3D printing (3DP) are two powerful and versatile AM techniques which are applicable to powder-based material systems. Hence, the latest state of knowledge available on the use of AM powder-based techniques in tissue engineering and their effect on mechanical and biological properties of fabricated tissues and scaffolds must be updated. Determining the effective setup of parameters, developing improved biocompatible/bioactive materials, and improving the mechanical/biological properties of laser sintered and 3D printed tissues are the three main concerns which have been investigated in this article.     

Cost effective manufacturing process of thermoplastic matrix composites for the traditional industry: the example of a carbon-fiber reinforced thermoplastic flywheel

Composite materials were successfully introduced and are now widely used for aerospace applications. Due to their high specific strength and stiffness, polymer-based composite materials should also be attractive candidates for many products of the traditional industries such as gas turbines, oil industry, or water and gas piping. The introduction of composite materials in the traditional industry is however a very slow process. Many factors can be identified as possible reasons such as the lack of previous examples on which to assess the durability of such composite products or reparability issues. However, the major factor hindering a broader use of composite materials for traditional products remains cost. Unlike the case of the aerospace industry, the use of composite materials is often not an enabling technology for traditional products: steel designs can be modified in order to increase the current product limitations. Therefore, the price of the composite system should be competitive when compared to the price of the equivalent system based on traditional materials such as steel or aluminum. In order to illustrate this concept, the case of steel risers for deepwater oil production is shortly discussed in the introduction of the present paper. When trying to reduce the price of composite products, the challenge often lies in lowering the manufacturing cost. The present paper focuses on applied manufacturing methods for various parts and products aiming to reduce cost. The associated performance of hot pressing and winding of short fiber and continuous fiber reinforced thermoplastic (AS4/PEEK) are compared for a high-speed flywheel type of application. Based on the mechanical performance and ease of fabrication, conclusions are drawn on a promising area of further investigation.     

陶瓷废料在建筑材料中的应用进展

随着社会经济及陶瓷行业的迅猛发展,建筑陶瓷废料日益增多,环境污染也日趋严重,因此陶瓷废料的再利用近年来成为人们关注的焦点。利用陶瓷废料生产建筑材料,既能使资源得到有效利用,又可以减少对环境的污染和破坏。综述了陶瓷废料的分类以及在建筑材料中的应用,重点讨论了利用陶瓷抛光废料制备建筑材料的最新制备工艺,最后展望了陶瓷废料的应用前景,并分析了在陶瓷废料的回收利用中亟待解决的问题。     

Evaluation environnementale des matériaux et des procédés de construction: application de l'analyse du cycle de vie à la construction d'un hall industriel

Methodologies based on Life Cycle Assessment (L.C.A.) give the opportunity to realise a global and complete evaluation of the environmental effects of products from their production to their use and elimination (from craddle to grave); methods used for analysis are internationally wellknown and standardised. These methods are rarely used in construction materials area, although materials flows and energy consumption are important and constructions have a long way of life. A calculation methodology, based on ecofactors/ecopoints, has been used for the analysis of industrial hall made of concrete, steel, or concrete/wood structure; materials but also construction process are compared at the point of view of their environmental impact. This analysis completes the technical and economical approaches for the construction owner and designer and gives a global view of the interaction between construction and civil engineering, and environment.     

Integrated and Intelligent Manufacturing: Perspectives and Enablers

With ever-increasing market competition and advances in technology, more and more countries are prioritizing advanced manufacturing technology as their top priority for economic growth. Germany announced the Industry 4.0 strategy in 2013. The US government launched the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (AMP) in 2011 and the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI) in 2014. Most recently, the Manufacturing USA initiative was officially rolled out to further “leverage existing resources... to nurture manufacturing innovation and accelerate commercialization” by fostering close collaboration between industry, academia, and government partners. In 2015, the Chinese government officially published a 10-year plan and roadmap toward manufacturing: Made in China 2025. In all these national initiatives, the core technology development and implementation is in the area of advanced manufacturing systems. A new manufacturing paradigm is emerging, which can be characterized by two unique features: integrated manufacturing and intelligent manufacturing. This trend is in line with the progress of industrial revolutions, in which higher efficiency in production systems is being continuously pursued. To this end, 10 major technologies can be identified for the new manufacturing paradigm. This paper describes the rationales and needs for integrated and intelligent manufacturing (i²M) systems. Related technologies from different fields are also described. In particular, key technological enablers, such as the Internet of Things and Services (IoTS), cyber-physical systems (CPSs), and cloud computing are discussed. Challenges are addressed with applications that are based on commercially available platforms such as General Electric (GE)’s Predix and PTC’s ThingWorx.     

The Future of Manufacturing: A New Perspective

Many articles have been published on intelligent manufacturing, most of which focus on hardware, software, additive manufacturing, robotics, the Internet of Things, and Industry 4.0. This paper provides a different perspective by examining relevant challenges and providing examples of some less-talked-about yet essential topics, such as hybrid systems, redefining advanced manufacturing, basic building blocks of new manufacturing, ecosystem readiness, and technology scalability. The first major challenge is to (re-)define what the manufacturing of the future will be, if we wish to: ① raise public awareness of new manufacturing’s economic and societal impacts, and ② garner the unequivocal support of policy-makers. The second major challenge is to recognize that manufacturing in the future will consist of systems of hybrid systems of human and robotic operators; additive and subtractive processes; metal and composite materials; and cyber and physical systems. Therefore, studying the interfaces between constituencies and standards becomes important and essential. The third challenge is to develop a common framework in which the technology, manufacturing business case, and ecosystem readiness can be evaluated concurrently in order to shorten the time it takes for products to reach customers. Integral to this is having accepted measures of “scalability” of non-information technologies. The last, but not least, challenge is to examine successful modalities of industry–academia–government collaborations through public–private partnerships. This article discusses these challenges in detail.     

A review on powder-based additive manufacturing for tissue engineering: selective laser sintering and inkjet 3D printing

Abstract

Since most starting materials for tissue engineering are in powder form, using powder-based additive manufacturing methods is attractive and practical. The principal point of employing additive manufacturing (AM) systems is to fabricate parts with arbitrary geometrical complexity with relatively minimal tooling cost and time. Selective laser sintering (SLS) and inkjet 3D printing (3DP) are two powerful and versatile AM techniques which are applicable to powder-based material systems. Hence, the latest state of knowledge available on the use of AM powder-based techniques in tissue engineering and their effect on mechanical and biological properties of fabricated tissues and scaffolds must be updated. Determining the effective setup of parameters, developing improved biocompatible/bioactive materials, and improving the mechanical/biological properties of laser sintered and 3D printed tissues are the three main concerns which have been investigated in this article.     

Ink Processing for Thermoelectric Materials and Power‐Generating Devices

The growing concern over the depletion of hydrocarbon resources, and the adverse environmental effects associated with their use, has increased the demand for renewable energy sources. Thermoelectric (TE) power generation from waste heat has emerged as a renewable energy source that does not generate any pollutants. Recently, ink‐based processing for the preparation of TE materials has attracted tremendous attention because of the simplicity in design of power generators and the possibility of cost‐effective manufacturing. In this progress report, recent advances in the development of TE inks, processing techniques, and ink‐fabricated devices are reviewed. A summary of typical formulations of TE materials as inks is included, as well as a discussion on various ink‐based fabrication methods, with several examples of newly designed devices fabricated using these techniques. Finally, the prospects of this field with respect to the industrialization of TE power generation technology are presented.     

Porosity,cracks, and mechanical properties of additively manufactured tooling alloys: a review

Additive manufacturing (AM) technologies are currently employed for the manufacturing of completely functional parts and have gained the attention of high-technology industries such as the aerospace, automotive, and biomedical fields. This is mainly due to their advantages in terms of low material waste and high productivity, particularly owing to the flexibility in the geometries that can be generated. In the tooling industry, specifically the manufacturing of dies and molds, AM technologies enable the generation of complex shapes, internal cooling channels, the repair of damaged dies and molds, and an improved performance of dies and molds employing multiple AM materials. In the present paper, a review of AM processes and materials applied in the tooling industry for the generation of dies and molds is addressed. AM technologies used for tooling applications and the characteristics of the materials employed in this industry are first presented. In addition, the most relevant state-of-the-art approaches are analyzed with respect to the process parameters and microstructural and mechanical properties in the processing of high-performance tooling materials used in AM processes. Concretely, studies on the AM of ferrous (maraging steels and H13 steel alloy) and non-ferrous (stellite alloys and WC alloys) tooling alloys are also analyzed.The full text can be downloaded at https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40436-021-00365-y     

Lamellar Tearing: A Failure Case Study

A variety of materials are used in the Oil & Gas industry ranging from carbon steel, stainless steel to nickel alloys, etc. including non-metallic materials as well. Amongst these, carbon steel is the industry favorite because of many of its desirable attributes like machinability, weldability, availability, and cost. Wide use of carbon steel in the industry is also due to the presence of required properties for the specific application. In spite of carbon steel’s wide uses, poor workmanship, improper heat treatment, or negligent manufacturing processes can reduce its service life and also can lead to unexpected failures. One such failure case involves carbon steel plate meant for construction of a tank that failed by cracking immediately after the welding operation. A detailed investigation was carried out by means of visual examination, metallographic and chemical analysis, SEM, and EDAX analysis. Microstructure revealed banded pearlitic structure along with a number of inclusions, a few of which were elongated. In conclusion, stresses due to weld joint restraint, elongated inclusions, and high transverse direction stresses after welding resulted in lamellar tearing which propagated in the linear direction along the weld line.     

增材制造铜/钢双金属材料研究进展

铜/钢双金属材料具有力学强度高、物理化学性能优良等优势,在交通运输、电力能源和建筑工业等领域应用前景广阔。然而,传统熔铸工艺在制造铜/钢双金属材料时,容易在铜/钢界面处产生偏析现象,在一定程度上限制了铜/钢双金属材料的发展。与传统工艺相比,增材制造技术不仅能实现复杂加工零件的快速制造,而且在成形过程中较短的保温时间能缓和或消除异种金属材料界面产生的冶金缺陷,进而增强铜/钢双金属材料的力学性能。由于双金属材料是近年来的研究热点,有关增材制造铜/钢双金属材料的综述性文章较少,故综述了近年来激光、电子束及电弧增材制造技术制造铜/钢双金属材料的研究发展现状,分析了各技术的优缺点,并从制备方法、工艺参数及界面合金元素等角度,分析了影响材料界面组织性能变化的关键因素。发现在增材制造铜/钢双金属材料方面,目前激光增材制造技术主要应用于精度要求较高的小尺寸零部件,电子束增材制造技术适用于某些具有特殊性能的合金,如钛合金,而电弧增材制造技术适用于精度要求较低的大型复杂零部件。在铜/钢双金属材料增材制造过程中,界面处易形成显微组织分布不均匀、界面晶粒尺寸差异较大等现象,导致界面处产生应力集中,从而造成材料...     

Industrial materials informatics: Analyzing large-scale data to solve applied problems in R&D,manufacturing, and supply chain

In this review, we discuss current and potential future applications for materials informatics in industry. We include in this discussion not only the traditional materials and chemical industries, but also other manufacturing-intensive sectors, which broadens the relevance of materials informatics to a large proportion of the economy. We describe several high-level use cases, drawing upon our experience at Citrine Informatics working in materials and manufacturing, although we omit any details that could be considered customer-proprietary. We note that a converging set of factors, including executive-level corporate demand for Big Data technologies, increasing availability of large-scale materials data, drive for greater competitiveness in manufacturing, and advances in machine learning, will lead to a rapid increase in industrial application of materials informatics over the next several years.