Due to the continuous deterioration of water quality, as well to the intensive and unbalanced usage of water in different regions and industries, not correlated enough with the adoption of coherent recycling and reuse practices, the future availability of water is threatened in many regions. Because of that, at the dawn of the third millennium, water may be considered a strategic resource as well as a trade good, and sustainable water management programs must be implemented at local, regional, national and international scale. Such sustainable solutions can only be found by considering both management and technological practices, in the context of well-defined national and international associated environmental policies and legislation. This study presents the actual trends of the European water resources management, with particular attention given to the EC Water Framework Directive (EC WFD) that integrates, for the first time, all issues related to an improved protection and management of all of Europe's water resources and aquatic environments The integrated river basin management is considered to be an essential part for the implementation of the EC WFD and a case study concerning the Prut river basin is discussed.
Waste biomass from forestry and wood processing industries is a source to obtain fine chemicals, and its processing is a good example of circular economy, but it generates secondary environmental impacts. the main objective of this study was to analyse the environmental performances of laboratory scale processes for polyphenols extraction from spruce bark by means of life cycle assessment (LcA) and to simulate and evaluate the scale-up possibilities of the most favourable alternative. the assessed extraction processes were: a classic Soxhlet extraction using ethanol as solvent (SE), a high-temperature extraction in 1% NaOH solution (NaOH-SLE) and an ultrasound assisted extraction process (UAE). The functional unit was 1 mg of extracted polyphenols, measured as gallic acid equivalents (mg GAE)/g spruce bark. The life cycle inventory has included specific laboratory scale operations and extraction processes (infrastructure and transport processes were not considered). Life cycle impact assessment was performed with ReCipe 2016 at midpoint. For all extraction processes, the environmental profiles were dominated by the electricity use for heating and this has generated the highest impacts in most of the impact categories, followed by the production and use of ethanol as solvent. for the ultrasound assisted extraction, a scale-up scenario has proven that by raising capacity to a 30 L extraction vessel and by changing the heating source to a biomass-fired boiler, environmental impacts may be greatly diminished. The paper discusses also the uncertainty of lab-scale generated data for LcA. A sensitivity analysis has proven that for this case, the energy efficiency of different lab-scale equipment induce acceptable degrees of uncertainty for the LcA results. Biomass has been considered among the most important renewables, with the greatest economic growth potential in the future. Biomass represents the only natural resource that can be converted into both high value-added products and energy. Therefore, the demand for biomass is increasing worldwide. Consequently, there is a growing need to better understand how biomass can be valorised sustainably, what are the biomass flows in the economy and how the increased pressure on natural resources can be adjusted with environmental and economic sustainability in Europe and globally 1. Particularly, by-products from forestry and wood processing industry appear to be the most important and promising feedstock for recycling and for closing product life cycles, in accordance with the circular economy principles. Currently, the main route for wood bark valorization is the direct energy production by incineration at the woodmill, given its relatively high energy content (high heating value of 20.4-25.1 MJ/kg for resinous bark), but due to reasons like heterogeneity and high ash content this option is not so economically feasible 2. The other main valorisation routes refer to different bio-refinery processes developed for the production of chemicals. The high lignin and extractives co...
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