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Adaptation of environmental data to national and sectorial context: application for reinforcing steel sold on the French market
Item type: Journal Article
Gomes, Fernanda; Brière, Raphael; Feraille, Adélaïde; et al. (2013)
Purpose: Environmental data for steel products are generally proposed at a continental or a global scale. The question we are tackling here is: does the fact that steel as a global market necessarily reduces the need for national data?
Methods: In this study, the environmental impact of reinforcing steel sold in France is evaluated. To do so, a specific environmental inventory is adapted from Ecoinvent database. CML method is used for impact calculation and both methods "recycled content" as well as "end of life recycling approach" are tested.
Results and discussion: This study shows that there is a specificity of reinforcing steel products sold in France compared to European value. It is due to the fact that reinforcing steel is mainly made with recycled steel as the market growth for construction product in France is limited allowing a very high recycled content. This result is not sensitive neither to the allocation method used for recycling (cut-off approach or system expansion) nor to transport distance and electricity country mix used.
Conclusions: The result of this study can be used with confidence in every construction site work located on the French territory. Furthermore, the present study advocates for an adaptation of global database to local context defined by a specific industrial sector and a geographic region even for product such as steel that may be considered as a first approximation as a global product.
Annihilation of Single Cell Neural Oscillations by Feedforward and Feedback Control
Item type: Journal Article
Fröhlich, Flavio; Jezernik, Sašo (2004)
Annihilation of neural oscillation by localized electrical stimulation has been shown to be a promising treatment modality in a number of neural diseases like Parkinson disease or epilepsy. The contributions presented in this manuscript comprise newly developed stimulation schemes to achieve annihilation of action potential generation and action potential propagation. The ability to achieve oscillation annihilation is demonstrated in computer simulations with a single compartment nerve cell model (annihilation of action potential generation), and with a multi-compartment nerve fiber model (annihilation of action potential propagation). Additionally, we show superiority of the new feedback based schemes over the feedforward schemes in terms of effectiveness, phase robustness, and reduced sensitivity to disturbances. At the end we propose a conditioned switched feedback control regime to be applied in actual applications, where oscillation annihilation is needed. © 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Arsenic accumulation of common plants from contaminated soils
Item type: Journal Article
Gulz, Petra Angela; Gupta, Satish-Kumar; Schulin, Rainer (2005)
A pot experiment was conducted to investigate the relationship between soluble concentrations of arsenic (As) in soil and its accumulation by maize (Zea mays), English ryegrass (Lolium perenne), rape (Brassica napus) and sunflower (Helianthus annuus) on two different soils: a calcareous Regosol (silty loam) and a non-calcareous Regosol (sandy loam). Arsenic (Na₂HAsO₄ · 7H₂O) was applied to obtain comparable soluble As concentrations in the two soils. In both soils, soluble As concentrations, extracted with 0.1 M NaNO₃, were found to correlate better with As concentrations in plants after 4 month of growth than total soil concentrations, extracted with 2 M HNO₃. With all four plant species, the relationship between the soluble As concentration in the soil and As that in the plants was non- linear, following "Michaelis-Menten" kinetics. Similar soluble As concentrations in the two soils did not result in a similar As concentration in the plants. Except for maize, arsenic transport from roots to shoots was significant, resulting in As concentrations in the leaves and grains above the Swiss tolerance limits for fodder and food crops (4 and 0.2 mg As kg⁻¹, respectively). Based on these results we suggest that beside As solubility, P availability and P demand, which are plant specific, have to be taken into account to predict the uptake of As by crop plants from As contaminated soils and to predict the risk of arsenic entering into the food chain.
Trace element partitioning for carbonated silicate melts generated in asthenospheric melting columns
Item type: Dataset
Schettino, Erwin; Schmidt, Max W. (2026)
Soil isotopically exchangeable zinc: A comparison between E and L values
Item type: Journal Article
Sinaj, Sokrat; Dubois, A.; Frossard, Emmanuel (2004)
The objectives of the present paper were: (i) to determine isotopically exchangeable zinc using two isotopic exchange methods (E and L values) in a series of polluted and non-polluted Swiss agricultural soils, and (ii) to evaluate the ability of chemical extraction methods to estimate plant-available soil Zn using isotopic techniques. The surface horizon (0-20 cm) of seven polluted and non-polluted soils representing a wide range in physico-chemical properties and Zn contents were sampled. An isotopic exchange kinetics (IEK) approach was used to assess, in a batch experiment, the isotopically exchangeable Zn content (E value). In order to determine the L values, a pot experiment was carried out with Lolium multiflorum (cv. Axis) in a growth chamber using a ⁶⁵Zn-isotope dilution technique. Total Zn uptake and the isotopic composition (⁶⁵Zn/ ˢᵗᵃᵇˡᵉZn) were determined in Lolium multiflorum for five successive cuts. The amounts of zinc extracted by different chemicals were compared with L values and regression parameters were estimated. The isotopic composition in soil extracted by DTPA and EDTAAc at the end of the pot experiment was also determined. Results showed that the equation describing the increase of isotopically exchangeable Zn with time could be extrapolated to three months for polluted and non-polluted neutral and acidic soils, and that the results were not different from the amount of isotopically exchangeable Zn experimentally determined with Lolium multiflorum (L value). In alkaline soils however, results suggest that either ⁶⁵Zn sorption occurred in the batch experiment or that the concentration of Zn in the soil solution had been overestimated, leading to an overestimation of the E value compared to the L values. Furthermore, the specific activities measured in DTPA and EDTA extractions at the end of the pot experiment were significantly different compared to the specific activity of the plant, showing that both these chelating agents extract neither all the available soil Zn nor only the available soil Zn for plants.