Review
Chemistry, Physical
Abhishek Gautam, Tapan Dave, Shankar Krishnan
Summary: Water scarcity is a critical global challenge due to depletion and contamination of freshwater reservoirs. The concept of zero liquid discharge (ZLD) has emerged as a sustainable alternative for freshwater production, preventing brine discharge and producing dry salts. The use of solar energy can further enhance the sustainability of ZLD desalination systems. A study on the impact of solar energy on ZLD desalination technologies shows that wind-aided intensified evaporation, reverse osmosis, and electrodialysis metathesis have higher potential compared to other technologies.
JOURNAL OF MOLECULAR LIQUIDS
(2023)
Review
Energy & Fuels
Rahul Chandel, Shyam Singh Chandel, Deo Prasad, Ram Prakash Dwivedi
Summary: This study explores the potential of PV-powered thermoelectric technology as a distributed air-conditioning system in buildings. It provides a comprehensive review of the technology and introduces several new design concepts. The study also critically analyzes the thermal comfort aspect of HVAC systems and discusses a novel thermoelectric system design concept. The research reveals the potential of TEM applications for future sustainability and thermal comfort in buildings and identifies further research areas.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENERGY RESEARCH
(2022)
Editorial Material
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Katharine Sanderson
Summary: The built environment presents a significant opportunity for implementing a circular economy, with standardization, smart design, and implementation being crucial for enabling this transition.
Article
Energy & Fuels
Francisco Manzano-Agugliaro, Mehdi Chihib, Mimoun Chourak, Jose Antonio Martinez, Antonio Jesus Zapata-Sierra, Alfredo Alcayde
Summary: To reduce energy waste and improve energy efficiency, a low-cost sensor network is used to monitor the energy usage of vending machines. By analyzing the data collected, users can identify patterns in energy usage and make changes to reduce overall energy consumption, leading to reduced environmental impact and improved productivity and cost-effectiveness of vending machines.
Article
Environmental Sciences
Saeed Rahimpour Golroudbary, Iryna Makarava, Andrzej Kraslawski, Eveliina Repo
Summary: This article analyzes the environmental impact of using rare earth elements in green energy technologies, finding that the production of green energy leads to depletion of REEs reserves and an increase in greenhouse gas emissions. Measures need to be taken to increase REEs reuse and recycling, limit dematerialization, increase substitution, and develop new elimination technologies.
SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT
(2022)
Article
Construction & Building Technology
Alan Meier, Dan Cautley
Summary: Non-intrusive load monitoring system (NILM) in commercial buildings faces challenges in load disaggregation due to the number and complexity of loads, difficulty in interpreting small changes in power consumption, and inability to identify continuously operating loads. Obtaining data sets for evaluation of NILM technologies in actual buildings is hindered by disruptions to occupants, misidentification errors, measurement errors, and expense. Enhancements to basic NILM approaches include tagging key devices, hybrid or supplemental metering, and applying insights from engineering knowledge and audits.
ENERGY AND BUILDINGS
(2021)
Article
Green & Sustainable Science & Technology
Alberto Quintana-Gallardo, Erwin M. Schau, Eva Prelovsek Niemela, Michael D. Burnard
Summary: Life Cycle Assessment of a wooden single-family model house in different European locations revealed that despite the highly insulative building envelope, the use phase still contributes significantly to total carbon emissions. Colder climates lead to higher carbon emissions, but the electricity generation mix can impact results.
JOURNAL OF CLEANER PRODUCTION
(2021)
Editorial Material
Green & Sustainable Science & Technology
Sandro Nizetic, Pawel Oclon, Theocharis Tsoutsos
Summary: Digitalization in various engineering fields opens up opportunities for the development of smart technologies, which focus on applications in customer services, process efficiency, security, and technological advancements. This editorial review discusses the research contributions presented at the 5th International Conference on Smart and Sustainable Technologies (SpliTech2020) in Croatia, with a focus on smart city, energy/environment, e-health, and engineering modeling. The research presented at the conference provides insights into the current progress and research directions in the field of smart technologies, particularly emphasizing sustainability aspects.
JOURNAL OF CLEANER PRODUCTION
(2022)
Article
Thermodynamics
Jason Maximino C. Ongpeng, Brian Immanuel B. Rabe, Luis F. Razon, Kathleen B. Aviso, Raymond R. Tan
Summary: Old buildings often have poor energy performance but new buildings are focusing on sustainable design and energy improvement. A systematic decision framework is developed to evaluate energy retrofit strategies and identify a compromise solution, which considers all stakeholders involved. Stakeholders preferred retrofit scenarios with on-site generation, mechanical/electrical improvements, and building envelope improvements.
Article
Biotechnology & Applied Microbiology
Xueqian Zhang, Allistair Border, Neill Goosen, Marianne Thomsen
Summary: The study found that sub-critical water extraction and hot water extraction systems showed higher carbon footprints but lower water footprints compared to the reference industrial-scale system. Scenario analysis revealed that adopting zero waste and closed-loop resource management principles in side-stream valorisation could lead to overall improvements in environmental impact reduction.
ALGAL RESEARCH-BIOMASS BIOFUELS AND BIOPRODUCTS
(2021)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Arkaitz Usubiaga-Liano, Paul Ekins
Summary: The Strong Environmental Sustainability Index (SESI) is a comprehensive metric based on the Environmental Sustainability Gap (ESGAP) framework, aiming to provide countries with an indicator to measure environmental sustainability. By aggregating 21 indicators, SESI reveals impaired natural capital functions in several European countries, particularly with indicators related to pollution and ecosystem health performing poorly. The results of the index are sensitive to assumptions in the normalization, weighting, and aggregation processes.
ECOLOGICAL INDICATORS
(2021)
Article
Thermodynamics
Ran Wang, Wei Feng, Lan Wang, Shilei Lu
Summary: The study compared the post-evaluation and drivers of ZEBs from different regions, finding that factors such as ZEB definition, energy drivers, and technology adoption determine energy performance. In cold regions, ZEBs adopt multiple technologies to achieve high energy efficiency, with a higher adoption ratio of passive technologies, especially in China.
Article
Green & Sustainable Science & Technology
Zhihan Zhang, Kehuan Wen, Wenjing Sun
Summary: This paper focuses on the optimal design of standalone PV/BES and PV/BES/DG for smart building electrification in remote areas, with the aim of improving cost-effectiveness and reliability. A comprehensive optimization model based on efficient EMS is established, and a new meta-heuristic search optimization algorithm is used to solve the model. The results confirm the effectiveness of the combination of the algorithm with efficient EMS.
SUSTAINABLE ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES AND ASSESSMENTS
(2023)
Article
Construction & Building Technology
Emin Acikkalp, Arif Hepbasli, Ana I. Palmero-Marrero, David Borge-Diez
Summary: Different definitions of Zero-Energy Building (ZEB) have been proposed, including zero energy, zero carbon, zero exergy, and zero cost. This study introduces the concept of net zero extended exergy buildings, which combines extended exergy and net zero exergy building concepts to measure the exergetic footprint. The proposed methodology is applied to a building, and the results indicate the required peak power and electrical energy for meeting the electricity demand.
JOURNAL OF BUILDING ENGINEERING
(2023)
Article
Engineering, Multidisciplinary
Riccardo Loggia, Alessandro Flamini, Andrea Massaccesi, Cristina Moscatiello, Luigi Martirano
Summary: Buildings currently account for the largest share in energy consumption, making energy efficiency a priority in refurbishment projects. Building automation and redesigning the electrical and thermal systems can significantly contribute to energy savings, comfort, and functionality. This article presents potential redevelopment projects using software applications, comparing the parameters and reference indices for calculating nZEB performance in a historical university department in Rome.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS
(2022)
Article
Computer Science, Information Systems
Shaun Howell, Thomas Beach, Yacine Rezgui
Summary: This paper proposes a methodology to address the sustainability and intelligence challenges of urban environments, successfully applied in the smart water domain to achieve positive results in requirement elicitation, testing, and deployment.
REQUIREMENTS ENGINEERING
(2021)
Article
Thermodynamics
Qinglong Meng, Yuan Xi, Xingxing Zhang, Monjur Mourshed, Yue Hui
Summary: By incorporating more detailed independent variables into the model, the proposed 3PH-MVR method in estimating base temperature for heating demand prediction shows a higher accuracy compared to traditional approaches. The relationships between base temperature and annual HDD, building location, and solar insolation were evaluated in this study.
BUILDING SIMULATION
(2021)
Correction
Biology
Xindong Chen, Hanxing Zhu, XiQiao Feng, Xiaona Li, Yongtao Lu, Zuobin Wang, Yacine Rezgui
COMMUNICATIONS BIOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Energy & Fuels
Amin Amin, Oudom Kem, Pablo Gallegos, Philipp Chervet, Feirouz Ksontini, Monjur Mourshed
Summary: The research team developed a cloud-based framework to optimize electricity consumption and generation in buildings, aiming to improve the participation of EU households in demand response programs. Through electro-thermal simulations and consideration of low-voltage grid constraints, their approach demonstrated success in real-world testing.
Article
Engineering, Environmental
Abdulrahman Fnais, Yacine Rezgui, Ioan Petri, Thomas Beach, Jonathan Yeung, Ali Ghoroghi, Sylvain Kubicki
Summary: This paper reviews the current research in life cycle assessment (LCA) applied to buildings, focusing on trends and identifying gaps for future research. A systematic literature review was conducted to identify current research and applications of LCA in buildings. The paper argues for the development of new generation LCA methods that can continuously learn from real-time data and inform effective operation and management strategies for buildings. It also emphasizes the importance of considering the time dimension in product system modeling and the combination of life cycle impact assessment models for more comprehensive and reliable LCA results. The paper promotes the concept of semantic-based dynamic LCA to achieve cradle-to-grave-to-reincarnation environmental sustainability capability and highlights the need to leverage digital building resources for accurate and reliable environmental assessments.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT
(2022)
Review
Engineering, Environmental
Ali Ghoroghi, Yacine Rezgui, Ioan Petri, Thomas Beach
Summary: This study explores the application of machine learning methods in life cycle assessment (LCA) and suggests that ML can be a useful tool in certain aspects of LCA, particularly in optimization scenarios. By integrating ML methods into existing inventory databases, the LCA process can be streamlined.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT
(2022)
Article
Energy & Fuels
Ateyah Alzahrani, Ioan Petri, Ali Ghoroughi, Yacine Rezgui
Summary: This article discusses the increasing pressure on seaports to reduce carbon footprint and increase energy efficiency and global competitiveness. The fishing industry, which is one of the most energy-intensive activities at seaports, has seen a dramatic increase in global human consumption of fish. The paper presents a roadmap to convert fishing ports into carbon-free ports, aiming to reduce energy dependence from the national grid and promote sustainable energy practices.
Article
Energy & Fuels
Mariam Elnour, Yassine Himeur, Fodil Fadli, Hamdi Mohammedsherif, Nader Meskin, Ahmad M. Ahmad, Ioan Petri, Yacine Rezgui, Andrei Hodorog
Summary: This study proposes a neural network-based model predictive control system for managing and optimizing the HVAC system of a sports hall. The neural network model outperforms other machine learning models and achieves significant energy reduction while improving indoor environmental quality.
Article
Green & Sustainable Science & Technology
Mariam Elnour, Fodil Fadli, Yassine Himeur, Ioan Petri, Yacine Rezgui, Nader Meskin, Ahmad M. Ahmad
Summary: This research presents the first review article addressing the research gap in building operation management and optimization for sports facilities. The study highlights the importance of considering climate zones and facility characteristics. The findings reveal limited research on sports facility management and optimization compared to residential and commercial buildings, with a majority of studies focused on facilities in cold regions. The study suggests future research directions, including the use of deep learning, modular solutions, and renewable energy systems.
RENEWABLE & SUSTAINABLE ENERGY REVIEWS
(2022)
Article
Construction & Building Technology
Giulia Cere, Yacine Rezgui, Wanqing Zhao, Ioan Petri
Summary: This research presents a risk-based approach to assess the risk of buildings under seismic conditions by optimizing the layout and thickness of specified shear walls, validated on a building in Beichuan, China. The methodology, validated on a building in Beichuan, China, demonstrates a reduction in risk and additional benefits.
JOURNAL OF BUILDING ENGINEERING
(2022)
Article
Construction & Building Technology
Andrei Hodorog, Ioan Petri, Yacine Rezgui
Summary: This article highlights the importance of social media data analysis in decision making within the context of a smart city. It presents the use of Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques for real-time automated event detection on Twitter. Through semantic-based taxonomy and multiple regression analysis, it reveals the relationships between events and citizen satisfaction, providing valuable data for informed decision making.
SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND SOCIETY
(2022)
Review
Construction & Building Technology
Mousa Alrasheed, Monjur Mourshed
Summary: Anthropogenic climate change may lead to overheating of dwellings and increased cooling demand, resulting in higher greenhouse gas emissions from mechanical cooling. This review examines the factors affecting overheating risks in dwellings and explores passive cooling strategies to mitigate their impact on thermal comfort and wellbeing. The effectiveness of passive strategies depends on building design, construction, operation, climate, and occupancy. The study finds that a combination of passive strategies is needed to minimize overheating risks by the 2080s. External solar shading is the most effective method for insulated dwellings, while cool paint is ideal for uninsulated ones. Moreover, occupant interaction is required for optimal air circulation and cooling performance of thermal mass and natural ventilation.
INDOOR AND BUILT ENVIRONMENT
(2023)
Article
Architecture
Tanvir Morshed, Monjur Mourshed
Summary: Buildings in the UK are responsible for one-third of greenhouse gas emissions. Recent building regulations aimed at reducing heating and energy use may be rendered ineffective due to overheating in highly-insulated, airtight buildings in the projected future climate. This research found that airtight office buildings in London will likely overheat in the 2050s, leading to increased electricity consumption and summertime space conditioning. A mixed-mode ventilation strategy is suggested to achieve energy efficiency and meet overheating and emissions targets. Current heating-focused legislation needs to be re-evaluated to consider the effects of the warming climate and overheating risks.
JAPAN ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW
(2023)
Article
Energy & Fuels
Amin Amin, Monjur Mourshed
Summary: In this study, a hybrid bottom-up community energy forecasting framework is developed to accurately estimate domestic electricity demand. The framework considers key factors such as demographic characteristics, occupancy patterns, and appliance features, resulting in highly accurate estimations and more reliable demand profiles.
Review
Environmental Sciences
Kumar Biswajit Debnath, Monjur Mourshed
Summary: Bangladesh, as an emerging economy, is heading towards a coal-intensive electricity generation mix due to limited renewable energy potential and energy and food security challenges.
Article
Construction & Building Technology
Samiran Khorat, Debashish Das, Rupali Khatun, Sk Mohammad Aziz, Prashant Anand, Ansar Khan, Mattheos Santamouris, Dev Niyogi
Summary: Cool roofs can effectively mitigate heatwave-induced excess heat and enhance thermal comfort in urban areas. Implementing cool roofs can significantly improve urban meteorology and thermal comfort, reducing energy flux and heat stress.
ENERGY AND BUILDINGS
(2024)
Article
Construction & Building Technology
Qi Li, Jiayu Chen, Xiaowei Luo
Summary: This study focuses on the vertical wind conditions as a main external factor that limits the energy assessment of high-rise buildings in urban areas. Traditional tools for energy assessment of buildings use a universal vertical wind profile estimation, without taking into account the unique wind speed in each direction induced by the various shapes and configurations of buildings in cities. To address this limitation, the study developed an omnidirectional urban vertical wind speed estimation method using direction-dependent building morphologies and machine learning algorithms.
ENERGY AND BUILDINGS
(2024)
Article
Construction & Building Technology
Xiaojun Luo, Lamine Mahdjoubi
Summary: This paper presents an integrated blockchain and machine learning-based energy management framework for multiple forms of energy allocation and transmission among multiple domestic buildings. Machine learning is used to predict energy generation and consumption patterns, and the proposed framework establishes optimal and automated energy allocation through peer-to-peer energy transactions. The approach contributes to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and enhances environmental sustainability.
ENERGY AND BUILDINGS
(2024)
Article
Construction & Building Technology
Ying Yu, Yuanwei Xiao, Jinshuai Chou, Xingyu Wang, Liu Yang
Summary: This study proposes a dual-layer optimization design method to maximize the energy sharing potential, enhance collaborative benefits, and reduce the storage capacity of building clusters. Case studies show that the proposed design significantly improves the performance of building clusters, reduces energy storage capacity, and shortens the payback period.
ENERGY AND BUILDINGS
(2024)
Article
Construction & Building Technology
Felix Langner, Weimin Wang, Moritz Frahm, Veit Hagenmeyer
Summary: This paper compares two main approaches to consider uncertainties in model predictive control (MPC) for buildings: robust and stochastic MPC. The results show that compared to a deterministic MPC, the robust MPC increases the electricity cost while providing complete temperature constraint satisfaction, while the stochastic MPC slightly increases the electricity cost but fulfills the thermal comfort requirements.
ENERGY AND BUILDINGS
(2024)
Article
Construction & Building Technology
Somil Yadav, Caroline Hachem-Vermette
Summary: This study proposes a mathematical model to evaluate the performance of a Double Skin Facade (DSF) system and its impact on indoor conditions. The model considers various design parameters and analyzes their effects on the system's electrical output and room temperature.
ENERGY AND BUILDINGS
(2024)
Article
Construction & Building Technology
Ruijun Chen, Holly Samuelson, Yukai Zou, Xianghan Zheng, Yifan Cao
Summary: This research introduces an innovative resilient design framework that optimizes building performance by considering a holistic life cycle perspective and accounting for climate projection uncertainties. The study finds that future climate scenarios significantly impact building life cycle performance, with wall U-value, windows U-value, and wall density being major factors. By using ensemble learning and optimization algorithms, predictions for carbon emissions, cost, and indoor discomfort hours can be made, and the best resilient design scheme can be selected. Applying this framework leads to significant improvements in building life cycle performance.
ENERGY AND BUILDINGS
(2024)