increasingly, companies are focusing on waste reduction in the entire manufacturing process rather than just on end-of-the-pipe waste. The techniques used in waste reduction can be broken own into four major categories-managing inventory, modifying production processes, educing waste volume, and recovering waste. Within each category, examples are given of process or materials changes or modifi...

Anaerobic digestion (AD) is an efficient and sustainable way of using organic carbon from residual biomass and organic waste for the production of renewable energy, while simultaneously recycling nutrients and cleaning up waste streams. The process relies on complex microbial communities comprised of diverse functional guilds; these communities have manifold metabolic pathways and interactions....

The increased development of green low-carbon energy technologies that require platinum group metals (PGMs) and rare earth elements (REEs), together with the geopolitical challenges to sourcing these metals, has spawned major governmental and industrial efforts to rectify current supply insecurities. As a result of the increasing critical importance of PGMs and REEs, environmentally sustainable...

Waste streams such as municipal wastewater and animal manure contain organic materials and nutrients that can be converted and recovered for bioenergy and renewable fertilizer production. In the first part of this thesis, the anaerobic co-digestion of dairy manure with kitchen waste and chicken fat was studied for the purpose of increasing biogas production. The methane yields of co-digestion s...

This report presents the results of a study that examined alternatives to landfilling the municipal solid wastes (MSW) of New York City. Detailed characterization of the wastes led to their classification, according to materials properties and inherent value, to “recyclable”, compostable”, “combustible”, and “landfillable”. The results showed that the present rates of recycling (16.6%) and comb...

Background and aims Swedish boreal streams were modified to transport timber by pushing boulders to stream sides, creating levees that disconnected streams from riparian areas. Many streams have since been restored and our goal was to understand how this affects riparian nitrogen (N) cycling. Methods We compared the natural abundance of δN isotopes in foliage and roots of Filipendula ulmaria pl...

3 FOREWORD The separation of actinide elements from various waste materials is a significant problem facing developed countries. The issue arises primarily because of the potential long-term hazard of many of the actinides, but is also due to the regulatory requirements associated with actinide waste disposal, which are different from those associated with other radioactive wastes. The differen...

Landfill avoidance for organic wastes is now a high priority worldwide. Two fractions of the municipal waste stream were considered with respect to their potential for diversion through controlled anaerobic digestion. The physical and chemical properties of source segregated domestic food waste (ss-FW) and of the mechanically-recovered organic fraction of municipal solid waste (mr-OFMSW) were a...

A COMMERCIALLY viable method of recovering polymer-grade ethylene from waste gas streams has been ded o p e d by TeMeCO Chemicals. Called the ESEP process, it is based on the cuprous aluminum tetrachloride technoIogy previously applied by Tenneco to the recovery of carbon monoxide from dilute gas streams, Cosorb. (ESEP and Cosorb are trademarks.) The ESEP effort, as described by Arthur P. Gutie...