A PDF file should load here. If you do not see its contents
the file may be temporarily unavailable at the journal website
or you do not have a PDF plug-in installed and enabled in your browser.
Alternatively, you can download the file locally and open with any standalone PDF reader:
http://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs12649-013-9226-y.pdf
Editorial
Waste Biomass Valor
0 Y. Wang Georgia Institute of Technology , Atlanta, GA , USA
1 S. Thomas (&) Mahatma Gandhi University , Kottayam, Kerala , India
Sabu Thomas • Youjiang Wang
-
Waste management has become one of today’s most
important challenges to mankind. Earlier days the treated
waste were used for (landfill) disposal, storage and in some
cases sorted for recycling and reuse. But direct recycling
options are limited due to the presence of pollutants like
heavy metals and organics (VOC, PAH) in them. Hence the
idea of collecting and transforming waste/biomass into
valuable materials and energy seems most welcome in this
context. Valorisation is a new concept in the field of waste
management promoting the principle of sustainable
development and this eventually leads to resource efficiency and
reduction of environmental damage. Waste valorization
deals with treating waste materials and using them as raw
material or as an energy carrier, taking care on processes
and practices which reduce emissions and related
environmental impacts.
In this issue we have listed the articles under four
divisions. The first division contains two articles dealing
with collection and sorting of waste. Sardot and colleagues
(University of Montana, USA) studied about the
characterization of plastic waste stream for engineering new
second life products. Currently the generated plastic waste
is either land-filled or burned. Here the plastic waste was
treated and test specimens were made which were
subjected to various characterization studies. Bleck and
colleagues (Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and
Health, Germany) studied how to reduce the occupational
risks associated with the informal collection of recyclable
materials in Ethiopia. Accepted European risk evaluation
methods and expert knowledge were applied to find out the
demand for improvements. Working equipment was
designed with participation of the collectors. A continuous
process of field testing and adjustments led to the final
solution.
The second division deals with the conversion of waste
to products which enlists four articles. Arcos-Hernandez
and colleagues (University of Queensland, Australia)
produced polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) from biomass
sourced from wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs).
Singh and colleagues (Indian Institute of Petroleum,
Dehradun) succeeded in preparing carboxymethylcellulose,
which is an important industrial polymer from corn cobic
lignocellulosic waste biomass, and the carboxymethylation
reaction was optimized against various parameters to
obtain maximum yield. Valverde and colleagues (AIMEN
Technology Centre, Spain) focused on the preparation and
characterization of heat insulation panels made of waste
derived from textile industry (polyester and polyurethane)
by thermoforming. Svenson and colleagues (University of
Tromsø, Norway) produced low cost, biodegradable
protein-based thermoplastic polymers from low value marine
waste material from farmed Atlantic salmon.
The third list deals with recycling of an individual type
of polymer. Achilias and colleagues (Aristotle University
of Thessaloniki, Greece) describe a method for recycling
polycarbonate waste using alkaline hydrolysis under
microwave irradiation. The results confirm the importance
of this recycling method for PC-based waste plastics which
helps in monomer recovery and substantial energy saving.
The same authors have contributed a review article in
recent advances in polycarbonate recycling. In this the
authors have described all the available methods for PC
recycling and their mechanisms and recorded their
potentials and weaknesses. Shukla and colleagues (Institute of
Chemical Technology, India) studied a very crucial
problem—recycling waste PET bottles using aminolytic
depolymerization to yield terephthalic dihydrazide (TPDH)
which was used to synthesise various benzene derivatives
possessing good antibacterial activity. The recycling of
polystyrene by selective dissolution technique was studied
by Rodr´ıguez and colleagues (University of Castilla-La
Mancha, Spain). Abdel-Raouf (Egyptian Petroleum
Research Institute, Cairo) also studied the recycling of
polystyrene waste by thermal and thermo-chemical
methods and compared the results. It was found that the
conversion of polystyrene increased in the thermo-chemical
process than in thermal process. Massardier and colleagues
(IMP/LMM—UMR-CNRS, France) produced new
materials from renewable resources mixed with recycled
polyamide polymers. The developed end products showed
superior properties and exhibited low toxicity. Castro and
colleagues (University of Minho, Portugal) present a
possible process for treating PVC-containing wastes in an
environmentally friendly way by effective de-chlorination
through a pyrolysis process at low temperature. The effects
of particle size and surface area of cryogenically-ground
micronized rubber powders (MRP) on the properties of
MRP/polypropylene (PP) composites were investiga (...truncated)