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Environmental Criteria (environmental + criterion)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Engineering	50%

Selected Abstracts

Implementing life cycle assessment in product development

ENVIRONMENTAL PROGRESS & SUSTAINABLE ENERGY, Issue 4 2003
Gurbakhash Singh Bhander
The overall aim of this paper is to provide an understanding of the environmental issues involved in the early stages of product development, and the capacity of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) techniques to address these issues. The paper aims to outline the problems for the designer in evaluating the environmental benignity of a product from the outset, and to provide a framework for decision support based on the performance evaluation at different stages of the design process. The barriers that prevent product developers from using LCA are presented, as well as opportunities for introducing environmental criteria in the design process by meeting the designer's information requirements at the different life cycle stages. This can lead to an in-depth understanding of the attitudes of product developers towards the subject area, and an understanding of possible future directions for product development. This paper introduces an Environmentally Conscious Design method, and presents trade-offs between design degrees of freedom and environmental solutions. Life cycle design frameworks and strategies are also addressed. The paper collects experiences and ideas around the state-of-the-art in eco-design, from literature and personal experience, and provides eco-design life cycle assessment strategies. The end result of this presentation is to define the requirements for performance measurement techniques, and the environment needed to support life cycle evaluation throughout the evaluation of early stages of a product system. [source]

A multi-objective optimization approach to polygeneration energy systems design

AICHE JOURNAL, Issue 5 2010
Pei Liu
Abstract Polygeneration, typically involving co-production of methanol and electricity, is a promising energy conversion technology which provides opportunities for high energy utilization efficiency and low/zero emissions. The optimal design of such a complex, large-scale and highly nonlinear process system poses significant challenges. In this article, we present a multiobjective optimization model for the optimal design of a methanol/electricity polygeneration plant. Economic and environmental criteria are simultaneously optimized over a superstructure capturing a number of possible combinations of technologies and types of equipment. Aggregated models are considered, including a detailed methanol synthesis step with chemical kinetics and phase equilibrium considerations. The resulting model is formulated as a non-convex mixed-integer nonlinear programming problem. Global optimization and parallel computation techniques are employed to generate an optimal Pareto frontier. © 2009 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 2010 [source]

Packaging reminiscences: some thoughts on controversial matters

PACKAGING TECHNOLOGY AND SCIENCE, Issue 4 2002
Frank PaineArticle first published online: 24 JAN 200
Abstract Packaging is necessary in a world dominated by marketing-based economies, which rely on it for the safe delivery of profitable products. It is different from many other functions because packaging has two faces and each face demands a special marketing approach. Also necessary to appreciate is that in the very marketing of all products packaging plays a vital part, yet it is still often treated as a necessary evil and is often used on an expediency basis by product manufacturers. Even the packaging manufacturers themselves still fall into the trap of providing what is asked for instead of designing what is really needed. To describe packaging as in a world of its own is no pretension, for wherever natural or manufactured products are produced, packaging is needed to contain, preserve and protect them in the journey to the market place. Food, drink, clothing, light engineering goods, china and glass, medicines and household chemicals,in all those industries it is packaging made of paper and board, glass, plastic and metal that serves them. The importance of properly designed packaging lies in the fact that it must meet the need for protection of the product from the hazards of damage and deterioration. At the same time it must also provide identification and attractive presentation and meet the appropriate environmental criteria, Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Shifting adaptive landscapes: Progress and challenges in reconstructing early hominid environments

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue S45 2007
John D. Kingston
Abstract Since Darwin situated humans in an evolutionary framework, much discussion has focused on environmental factors that may have shaped or influenced the course of human evolution. Developing adaptive or causal perspectives on the morphological and behavioral variability documented in the human fossil record requires establishing a comprehensive paleoenvironmental context. Reconstructing environments in the past, however, is a complex undertaking, requiring assimilation of diverse datasets of varying quality, scale, and relevance. In response to these difficulties, human evolution has traditionally been interpreted in a somewhat generalized framework, characterized primarily by increasing aridity and seasonality periodically punctuated by pulses or intervals of environmental change, inferred largely from global climatic records. Although these broad paradigms provide useful heuristic approaches for interpreting human evolution, the spatiotemporal resolution remains far too coarse to develop unambiguous causal links. This challenge has become more acute as the emerging paleoenvironmental evidence from equatorial Africa is revealing a complex pattern of habitat heterogeneity and persistent ecological flux throughout the interval of human evolution. In addition, recent discoveries have revealed significant taxonomic diversity and substantially increased the geographic and temporal range of early hominids. These findings raise further questions regarding the role of the environment in mediating or directing the course of human evolution. As a consequence, it is imperative to critically assess the environmental criteria on which many theories and hypotheses of human evolution hinge. The goals here are to 1) compile, review, and evaluate relevant paleoecological datasets from equatorial Africa spanning the last 10 Ma, 2) develop a hierarchical perspective for developing and evaluating hypotheses linking paleoecology to patterns and processes in early hominid evolution, and 3) suggest a conceptual framework for modeling and interpreting environmental data relevant to human evolution in equatorial Africa. Yrbk Phys Anthropol 50:20,58, 2007. © 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]