By 2002 the world market for polymer composites was 7.2 Million Tons. The automotive and industrial vehicle industry consumes 25% of the world's composite material output. Composite materials benefit the automotive industry in multiple ways. Regulatory pressure that encourages recyclablity and reduction of energy consumption pushes automotive manufacturers to consider new technologies to meet these environmental standards. The work being undertaken in this research is part of an ED integrated Project under the "Sixth Framework of Research and Development Funding". The project title is "Hydrogen Storage Systems for Automotive Application (StorHy)". Within this project, the Recycling Work Package (WP5) aims to develop recycling techniques for glass and carbon fibre reinforced polymer composite pressure vessels that were proposed for hydrogen storage. This thesis describes the development of a SIze reduction technique for the carbon/epoxy and glass/PP pressure vessels with respect to the particle size and investigates ways of preparing the granulated fractions for subsequent processing. An image analysis technique was successfully developed for the characterisation of the reground material from the carbon/epoxy pressure vessel. The same image analysis technique could not be used to analyse the reground material produced from the thermoplastic vessel. Alternatively, the reground material from the thermoplastic vessel were characterised through a sieve analysis technique. The reground material from the thermoset vessel produced in this work could be processed in a fluidized bed rig which is mentioned in a number of publications. In this work, the reground material from the thermoplastic vessel was successfully processed using an injection moulding machine, with mechanical properties as good as comparable to commercial composites. In this study micro mechanical models available in the short fibre composite literature such as Halpin-Tsai and the rule of mixtures were used to predict the stiffness of the injection moulded composites. The trend observed for the Halpin-Tsai model appeared not to be in a good agreement with the experimental data but the rule of mixtures model was found to predict the experimental data more accurately.

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Pollution and waste are continually generated. The production of waste. however. has increased rapidly in recent years. An efficient and safe means of either neutralizing or disposing of this waste has been increasingly researched. In recent times, the potential of recycling and reusing the waste in construction works has been investigated. The studies have highlighted the benefits of such applications. In line with these studies, the current study investigated the suitability of using Incinerator Bottom Ash Waste (lBA W) as an alternative to conventional aggregates in the construction of road foundations. IBA W is a residual material produced by incinerating Municipal Solid Waste (MSW). The potential advantage of this approach is that the reuse of IBA W helps to conserve the supplies of conventional aggregates and reduces the landfills needed to store the waste. However, such applications may cause serious environmental impacts as IBA W may be exposed to intermittent infiltration as a consequence of precipitation events or altering of the water table, resulting in a potential release of pollutants to soil and groundwater. This work is divided into three main parts. The first part investigates the potential environmental impacts by using leaching tests for treated and untreated IBA W. The treatment including stabilization and chemical processes was applied in this study for IBA W by using different types of novel and traditional additives. This treatment aimed at immobilizing the pollutants by integrating them in a strong matrix. The Iysimeter as a leaching tool was adopted to assess the potential impact of changing conditions such as liquid to solid ratio (LIS), pH value, IBA W content and different treatment agents on long-term release of heavy metals and salts to estimate the environmental risks of IBA W. Appropriate and reliable leaching models based on initial measurement of intrinsic material properties and simplified testing were used to predict the release of constituents of concern from IBA W and its migration and fate into soil. The second part of the thesis aims at analyzing the microstructure of IBA W material by using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDXS) techniques. These tests are adopted to manifest the physical and chemical features of IBA Wand identify the nature of the materials and any secondary reaction elements, especially after mixing with water, with and without additives. This helps understanding the behaviour of the materials because there is a good correlation between the microstructural and chemical composition of the materials and their mechanical behaviour. The third part studies the mechanical properties of IBA W as an aggregate. An experimental programme has been undertaken to investigate the influence of treatment on the behaviour of IBA W blends for use as foundation layers. The research has focused on determining the blends' resilient modulus and permanent deformation. Cyclic and static triaxial compression tests were adopted to determine the materials' mechanical characteristics. Light Weight Falling Deflectometer (L WFD) test was also adopted as an in-situ evaluation for the elastic modulus of IBA W. Emphasis has been on examining the effect of various parameters, such as IBA W content, type and content of additives, moisture content, curing time and maximum nominal particle size on the behaviour of the investigated blends. The shakedown concept was adopted to evaluate the behaviour of the IBAW material under cyclic loading as a granular material. A new calculation model was proposed to estimate the plastic deformation of IBA W and granular materials under monotonic loading. Finite element modelling was adopted to simulate the IBA W material behaviour under static, cyclic and impact loading in macro and micro scales. The main findings of this study are that IBA W can be reused safely and successfully as an aggregate in construction applications. It also illustrated that IBA W may show similar or even better behaviour than conventional aggregate as observed under some conditions. IBA W also showed typical behaviour of conventional aggregates using the theoretical and modelling approaches. Some novel and traditional treatment agents resulted in a good improvement in IBA W behaviour in terms of environmental and mechanical properties.

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Municipal solid waste (MSW), as an emerging biomass source, presents a unique opportunity for large-scale second-generation bioethanol production. Feedstock supply is reliable and in sufficient quantity, making it a promising biomass source but the conversion yield is currently too low to make it financially attractive. This work presented in this thesis provides a better understanding of bioconversion systems, in particular of pre-treatment and hydrolysis processes which contribute to more than 60% of ethanol selling price. This thesis also presents a technique of bioconversion which allows conversion of MSW to bioethanol to be carried out more efficiently than with existing techniques. This thesis starts with an assessment of the feasibility of using MSW to replace primary agricultural products as biomass sources. It presents an efficient MSW to ethanol bioconversion process which includes pre-treatment and enzymatic hydrolysis, and provides detailed quantitative information on the conditions that maximise the glucose yield to 80% after 24-h hydrolysis reaction. This thesis also presents the result of the characterisation of the complex substrate features of the selected MSW fractions which have lignin and cellulose crystallinity, and an evaluation of the effects of MSW-substrate features on the conversion process. Finally, it presents the first model of the effects of substrate features in cellulase-cellulose adsorption cellulase-cellulose adsorption is recognised as a crucial step that controls the enzymatic hydrolysis rate. This study shows that lignin, crystallinity, cellulose content and their interaction have an important influence on enzyme adsorption capacity. It is concluded that both lignin content and crystallinity play a greater role in cellulose-cellulase adsorption than cellulose content. Finally the presence of lignin has a greater effect than crystallinity on both the maximum enzyme adsorption capacity and steady-state enzyme adsorption, whereas crystallinity has a greater effect on the latter one.

Water supply utilities worldwide are under pressure to meet stringent water quality and supply demands Service reservoirs (SRs) or treated water storage reservoirs have been built for the dual function of maintaining pressure and providing a buffer of supply. A balance must be sought between operational objectives in order to ensure adequate supply in the event of unforeseen incidents whilst limiting the maximum time between abstraction and the point of use. Existing reservoirs can have storage times between a couple of hours and several tens of days. The resulting degradation in water quality ensures that it is no longer feasible to focus on point of abstraction treatment as a means of assuring that all customer and legislator expectations are continuously met. This thesis aims to evaluate the hydraulic design and operation of service reservoirs in the UK and evaluate methods to improve performance. A generic study of mixing in service reservoirs has been conducted using physical modelling techniques. The segregation of generic groups of reservoirs for modelling was defined after a comprehensive survey of 166 operational full-scale reservoirs was completed. Reservoir groups are defined in terms of shape and aspect ratio. Steady state, transient tests and intermittent flow — "fill and draw" tracer tests were conducted. Step and pulse trace injection techniques were used. Dye tests were conducted for flow visualisation and the results recorded with photographic stills and a digital video recorder. Water age is quantified in terms of cumulative percentage of injected trace recovery. Flow fractions in terms of dead space, plug flow and mixed flow are quantified for each series of tests using a multiparameter model. Alternative methods of quantification. dead areas are evaluated and discussed. Key reservoir performance indicators are defined and linked to water quality issues. The results presented have been compiled into a design guide document to enable water utility managers to simply evaluate existing reservoir designs and evaluate potential operational and retrofit options for optimisation. Case studies of full-scale reservoirs applications are presented.

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