Articles in Press

Ashes, formed as a result of combustion of biomass are a new class of by-products of combustion and due to the large variety of these materials their chemical composition has not been fully determined. Their use is limited, despite the fact that their production has increased. This work presents the results of studies on the possibility of limiting the potential availability of Cu, Mn, Pb and Zn for plants by use of an inorganic stabilizer - ash from biomass combustion. In this study the usefulness of ash from biomass for binding mobile fractions of heavy metals (Cu, Mn, Pb and Zn) was evaluated. The investigations were executed using three extraction tests with the use of the following extraction solutions: 1 M HNO3 – acid soluble forms (As), 0.05 M EDTA – bioavailable forms (Bio), 2.5% CH3COOH – exchangeable forms (Ex). The values of the following parameters: Mobility Index (MI), Contamination Factor (CF), Pollution Load Index (PLI), Geo – accumulation Index (Igeo) and Ecological Risk Index (RI) were defined and determined for their suitability as a test soil stabilizer. Furthermore, a multivariate statistical analysis was carried out. It was found, that a phytoremediation process using investigated ash from biomass combustion can be applied to soil contaminated by heavy metals.

This study investigated temporal and spatial patterns of heavy metal content in Ulva australis. Samples were collected from the Derwent Estuary, Tasmania, Australia, over 3 years (2013-2015) at locations where historically arsenic, cadmium, lead and zinc were high in sediments and seawater. Zinc and lead content were high in U. australis at all sampling times, with levels consistent with the spatial distribution of metal within the system. Zinc in Ulva varied seasonally (4.8 – 320.7 mg·kg-1), but lead did not. Zinc and lead were highest in the middle-upper estuary, close to the zinc smelter, where seawater concentrations were higher. The results suggest that spatial variation of metal content in Ulva is a reflection of variability in the seawater, which in turn indicates that U. australis could be used for monitoring the effects of metals in estuarine systems, and that U. australis could be a useful addition to existing management strategies.

The purpose of this research is to identify and characterize the poorly investigated problem of heavy metal contamination originating from World War I and II mass graves. Chemical elements pass systematically into the soil from metal weapons, buttons, badges, and other objects. As a result, the soil and groundwater become highly saturated with heavy metals relative to metals from communal waste. A review of previous analyses of the areas surrounding localized graves in southeast Poland revealed chemicals leached from burials to have a significant impact on the environment and groundwater. This review highlights the danger posed by mass graves that are frequently located near human settlements and rivers. However, the exact locations of the majority of mass graves are unknown and the heavy metal hazard warrants their identification and reburial in an appropriate place.

Due to the intermittent and fluctuating nature of wind and other renewable energy sources, their integration into electricity systems requires large-scale and flexible storage systems to ensure uninterrupted power supply and to reduce the percentage of produced energy that is discarded or curtailed. Storage of large quantities of electricity in the form of dynamic energy of water masses by means of coupled reservoirs has been globally recognized as a mature, competitive and reliable technology; it is particularly useful in countries with mountainous terrain, such as Greece. Its application may increase the total energy output (and profit) of coupled wind-hydroelectric systems, without affecting the availability of water resources. Optimization of such renewable energy systems is a very complex, multi-dimensional, non-linear, multi modal, nonconvex and dynamic problem, as the reservoirs, besides hydroelectric power generation, serve many other objectives such as water supply, irrigation and flood mitigation. Moreover, their function should observe constraints such as environmental flow. In this paper we developed a combined simulation and optimization model to maximize the total benefits by integrating wind energy production into a pumped-storage multi-reservoir system, operating either in closed-loop or in open-loop mode. In this process, we have used genetic algorithms as the optimization tool. Our results show that when the operation of the reservoir system is coordinated with the wind farm, the hydroelectricity generation decreases drastically, but the total economical revenue of the system increases by 7.02% when operating in closed-loop and by 7.16% when operating in open-loop mode. We conclude that the hydro-wind coordination can achieve high wind energy penetration to the electricity grid, resulting in increase of the total benefits of the system. Moreover, the open-loop pumped-storage multi-reservoir system seems to have better performance, ability and flexibility to absorb the wind energy decreasing to a lesser extent the hydroelectricity generation, than the closed-loop.