9762 papers found
This paper describes the ongoing European research project “Metrology for Biofuels”, which deals with the development of metrological references for selected chemical parameters and physical properties of first generation liquid biofuels.
This paper describes the work being undertaken in the European Metrology Research Programme (EMRP) ‘Characterisation of Energy Gases’ project to develop traceable, high-accuracy measurement methods to underpin the characterisation of non-conventional energy gases. The project will provide a metrology infrastructure to underpin the ‘interchangability’ of greener, more environmentally friendly energy gases (e.g. biogas, coal bed methane and coal mine methane) so that gaseous fuels from non-conventional sources can access gas grids across Europe.
Energy harvesting is the use of e.g. thermocouples or piezoelectric generators for the conversion of ambient energy resulting from human activity and environmental energy flows in the form of waste heat, movement and vibration, into usable electrical energy. In the described project traceable methods for measuring energy, power and efficiency are being developed.
Large scale power plants based on nuclear or conventional fuel provide about 80 % of generated electricity in the EU and nearly 90 % of hot water used for district heating. As electric energy cannot be stored in significant amounts it has to be generated at the time of use. Consequently, a mix of basic, medium and peak load power plants is necessary in order to balance consumption and production. Despite the necessity of renewable energy, large scale power plants will form the backbone for the secure supply of energy for the next few decades. It is therefore of outstanding importance to...
The establishment of a reliable, efficient and sustainable energy supply as well as of achieving efficient use/consumption form one of the grand challenges and technological mega trends of today and the decades to come. Today, energy research and development and even field measurements for novel and renewable energies, for transmission and distribution, for (future) large-scale energy storage as well as for new energy-efficient solutions are significantly lacking in appropriate measurement technologies, future strategies, measurement standards and traceability schemes. An overview is given...
EURATOM recommends through “EC Recommendation 90/ l43”, protecting the public against Rn indoor exposure by raising new buildings or solutions for renovating the old ones, so that the volume activity of Rn does not exceed a certain effective equivalent dose. In Romania there does not exist an official map of Rn and neither a database for charting. For the recovery of Romania left behind in this field we have proposed to study and to evaluate Rn risks over Romania’s territory and started using the database from pilot areas (Caras Severin and Hunedoara); elaborating a new software in order to...
We demonstrate the importance of the sample preparation and extraction procedure for the soil salinity study. A comparison between the most commonly used techniques for the evaluation of salt amount in samples is presented. Several sample preparation and salt extraction procedures were tested. We calculated the efficiency for each procedure thanks to the preparation of soil samples with a precisely known salinity. This enabled us to determine which sample preparation and extraction procedure gives the best efficiency and accuracy. Hence, a series of measurement with the atomic absorption and...
An overview is given on relevant climate observation needs. The main focus is on the use of remote monitoring of the Earth system. Only global observation from space can provide the necessary information to support politics in the development of appropriate mitigation strategies to respond to climate change. The harsh environment of space limits the uncertainty of measurement results currently attainable from remote monitoring. In the specific case of climate this is often a factor of ten larger than required by the community. The necessity for reduced uncertainty has move forward the...
The quality and the quantity of liquid fluid flow in pipelines is a crucial issue for human beings’ daily life, especially for leak detection. The control and managing of pipelines have been assuming a major importance for all kinds of fluids to be conveyed through. When the fluid is like oil, hazardous fluid and/or water for human beings’ necessity, the monitoring of pipelines becomes extremely fundamental. For complex pipeline networks, even if flowmeters deliver data about fluid quantities, they cannot be used for each part of a complex and extended network because of heavy increasing...
Air pollution is a major environmental risk to health causing premature deaths worldwide. In these conditions, the development of reliable and accurate mobile systems that measure the indoor air quality together with other parameters associated with health status of the people working or living in specified spaces represents an important challenge. The paper presents the design and implementation of a mobile air quality and respiration activity monitoring system including multi-channel Bluetooth compatible smart sensors that deliver the information to a smart phone running an Android...