The need for sustainability, increasingly requires developing products according to a cradle to cradle approach. For furniture, wood, being potentially renewable, is a suitable material in this regard. However, most wooden furniture today utilizes steels and synthetic polymers in the joints, which can partially be recycled, but are far from being circular materials. All-wood joints have been used in traditional furniture and construction, but they are not adapted to modern manufacturing techniques and do not fulfill the need for easy assembly.  The aim of this thesis is to explore existing solutions for all-wood joints, as well as relevant manufacturing techniques to create an approach for the development of new joints by practitioners. The research questions are: What are the principles used in existing technical solutions and how can they be used to develop new all-wood furniture joints? What are the most important manufacturing techniques for wood today and how can they be considered in the early-stage development? The general approach in this thesis is to abstract the researched existing technical solutions and manufacturing techniques, ideate on this abstract level, and then detail the concepts on a more concrete level.  As results, fourteen different principles and six different patterns of transformation were extracted from existing solutions and documented in an accessible form. Similarly, seven manufacturing techniques were collected and documented. These were then used in an ideation workshop with practitioners from IKEA, which resulted in six abstract concepts. One of the concepts was further developed into a pre-design and tested with a simulations according to strength and stability requirements from applicable standards.  The testing of the pre-design proved its practicality and a team at IKEA is continuing the development of the concept and planning to manufacture a prototype. This is a good indicator for the usefulness of the approach. Even though it worked well, further exploration of the "toolbox" is recommended, as well as the use of different ideation methods. The full environmental benefits of furniture with all-wood joints are not clear, because only resource depletion was considered and the potential effect is small compared to other industries. Despite this, the thesis shows the potential in circular furniture and encourages IKEA and other furniture companies to delve into the topic of circular furniture more deeply.

The Brazilian textile industry has many years of experience in producing apparel within the country. Brazil is a country with a well developed supply chain, yet they import a big amount of manufactured textile products from Asia each year. Globalization has made fashion brands look outside of the country's borders to be able to deliver a good price to the end consumer. In this study an investigation has been made to elucidate why the apparel companies import from Asia, what is imported from Asia and how the image of the companies would be affected by working more sustainably by utilizing the existing resources available in Brazil. In order to learn why companies do import, semi-structured interviews have been made with people who work and have good knowledge regarding this subject. To put this matter into context a Brazilian apparel company named Cia.hering has been used as an exponent for this report. This to get a more clear view on how the company might be affected by producing more locally and if it would be possible. To learn about how the Brazilian consumers look at sustainable fashion and what they think of Cia.Hering as a company a survey has been conducted. The outcome of this study shows that the consumers have a big effect on how companies choose to produce but that it is up to the individual apparel company to choose how they want to produce their goods. Producing locally makes it a lot easier to control the full supply chain and to work as a more transparent company.

Forward osmosis (FO) as a novel membrane separation technology has recently been investigated in various water treatment applications. The natural mass transfer process between two solutions driven by the osmotic pressure difference leads to many operational advantages in the FO process, such as low energy consumption and minimal fouling problems. It makes FO a feasible technology for the treatment of produced water (PW). Although previously, the treatment of PW using FO has been investigated, osmotic backwashing (OB) is not systematically examined for water flux recovery of the PW fouled FO membranes. Moreover, the cleaning of FO membranes used for the simultaneous treatment of different PW streams was never previously attempted. In this study, OB was thoroughly investigated for the cleaning of PW-fouled FO membranes. Also, FO membrane chemical cleaning using SDS and NaOH solutions was examined too. To investigate OB, the cleaning efficiency of a 60 min OB cleaning protocol was examined under different FO operating modes in (5 x 20 h) experiments using synthetic desalter effluent as FO feed solution (FS) and 1.2 M NaCl solution or water-oil separator outlet (WO) as draw solutions (DS). The AL-FS (active layer facing FS) mode outcompeted the AL-DS (active layer facing DS) mode, achieving a flux of 12.9 LMH and 80.1% water reclamation when using WO as a DS. Therefore, this FO configuration 5 was selected when evaluating the cleaning protocols. Moreover, after evaluating different OB methods, the 30 min OB protocol achieved the highest system efficiency rate of 95% and was studied for the treatment of real PW streams. The SDS and NaOH chemical cleaning methods achieved flux recovery rates of 99% and 98% by the end of the third treatment cycle, respectively, outperforming the 89% flux recovery rate of the optimized OB protocol. Although the investigated cleaning methods were able to restore the system performance, a substantial increase in RSF was observed due to mainly irreversible colloidal fouling. This study demonstrates the feasibility of OB and chemical cleaning in restoring FO system performance for the simultaneous treatment of PW streams

Promoting trading of locally produced food is one way to challenge the more conventional way of producing food while contributing to a more sustainable consumption. Through empirical research and design practice closely related to its users, this study has explored the motivational aspects behind trading within the platform and concept of REKO-ring Malmö. An analysis of the existing service in relation to its producers and consumers has been made to formulate problems related to how the platform works today. The study results in a design proposal of a new digital platform that shows improvement in meeting the needs and expectations of the consumers found during the empirical research.

The production of cyanobacterial biofilm biomass and phycocyanin from Rotating Algal Biofilm Reactors utilizing undiluted produced water from oil and natural gas extraction as a culture medium was investigated in this study. Produced water is the largest waste stream generated by the oil and natural gas industries and represents a large volume of non-potable water that may be available for algae culture with minimal impact on freshwater resources. Combining the use of produced wastewater as culture medium with the production of high value algal pigments, such as phycocyanin, may increase the economic viability of algae culture and wastewater purification. High value phycocyanin pigment production and methods to increase phycocyanin yields with light limitation were examined in this study. A unique cyanobacteria species was isolated from the Logan City Wastewater Treatment Facility in Logan, Utah and used in conjunction with the Rotating Algal Biofilm Reactor platform for the duration of this study. Between the “high” and “low” light treatments used in this study, the high light treatment showed nearly twice the biomass production as the low light culture (4.8±0.7 vs. 2.7±0.4 g/m2-day). The low light biomass contained 87.6% more of the phycocyanin pigment, with a 230% increase in purity, then the biomass from the high light treatment. The areal footprint productivity of phycocyanin per day was the same for both the light treatments. An evaluation of growth attachment materials was conducted with cotton rope and cotton conveyer cloth materials found to be the most durable and having the highest yields of harvestable biomass. The cotton rope and cotton conveyor cloth materials were evaluated on a floating Rotating Algal Biofilm Reactor operating in a 2000 L outdoor produced water pond. The cotton rope yielded a 140% increase in biomass vs. the cotton cloth although the compositions varied greatly. The cotton cloth biomass was composed of mainly healthy algae with higher phycocyanin yields while the cotton rope showed a higher proportion of non-algae organisms and little phycocyanin. These results show promise for the utilization of produced water to grow cyanobacteria biofilms with modifiable biomass characteristics as a source of high value phycocyanin pigments.

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Behovet av att se över kopplingarna mellan livsmedelsförsörjningen, hållbarhet och suveränitet - vid tillhandahållandet av livsmedel - har ökat i och med en instabil och osäker omvärld. En ökad lokal och småskalig livsmedelsproduktion skulle på ett nationellt plan kunna göra livsmedelssystemet mer robust och resilient vid eventuella störningar. Denna studie avser att ge en bred bild av konsumenters attityd, engagemang, kunskap och beteende kring beredskapsfrågan, livsmedelssäkerhet samt konsumtion av lokalproducerade varor. Studien avser också undersöka Sveriges nationella ambitionsnivå för att främja utvecklingen av en hållbar, långsiktigt och konkurrenskraftig livsmedelskedja och på vilket sätt samhället bidrar eller kan bidra till att underlätta och stimulera den typen av näringsverksamhet. Resultatet visar att det råder en stark positiv attityd, medelhög kunskapsnivå, medelhögt engagemang samt starkt positivt beteende bland respondenterna. Resultatet visar även att inställningen till lokalproducerade livsmedel är positiv och att den framför allt kan härledas till känslan av samhörighet och värnandet om den lokala levande landsbygden. Gällande beredskapsfrågan så råder det bland respondenterna en tydlig koppling till småskalig och lokalproducerad livsmedelsproduktion såväl som till självförsörjning. Det föreligger dock stora hinder med småskaliga verksamheter i form av pris och tillgänglighet, både i form av utbud, öppettider och kommunikation. Det är idag mest resursstarka konsumentgrupper som köper lokalproducerat och det finns en risk för en ökande segregation i detta. Staten skulle kunna driva på för att få på plats en definition av lokalproducerade livsmedel samt arbeta med mjuka styrmedel såsom exempelvis miljömärkningar. De skulle också kunna höja taket för direkta upphandlingar inom ramen för EU-direktivet om offentlig upphandling så att kommunerna kan köpa in en större andel lokalproducerade livsmedel i sin offentliga upphandling. / The requirement to review the links between food security, sustainability, and sovereignty - in the provision of food - has increased in an uncertain and unstable environment. Increased local and small-scale food production could, on a national level, make the food system more robust and resilient in the event of disturbances and crises. This study intends to give a broad picture of consumers' attitude, commitment, knowledge and behavior regarding preparedness, food safety and consumption of locally produced food. The study also intends to examine Sweden's national ambition to promote the development of a sustainable, long-term, and competitive food chain and in what way society contributes or can contribute to facilitating and stimulating that type of business. The result shows that there is a strong positive attitude, medium level of knowledge, medium commitment and strong positive behavior among the respondents. The results also show that the attitude towards locally produced food among consumers is positive and can be mainly attributed to the feeling of belonging and the protection of the local living countryside. Regarding the issue of preparedness, there is a clear connection to small-scale and locally produced food production as well as self-sufficiency among the respondents. However, there are major obstacles regarding the price and availability, both in terms of range, opening hours and communication. It is today the most resourceful consumer groups in the society that are able to buy locally produced products and there is a risk of increasing segregation in this. The state could also push to get a definition of locally produced food in place and work with soft control instruments such as, for example, an environmental label. They could also raise the amount for direct procurement within the framework of the EU-directive on public procurement so that the municipalities can buy a greater proportion of locally produced food in their public procurement.

We use an interferometric method for measuring the plasma density in a laser-induced plasma as a function of time. Any changes in the density within 5 ns of generation is due plasma expansion and not recombination. The analytic solution for plasma expansion derived for ultracold Neutral Plasmas describes the expansion of our laser produced Neon plasma of densities up to approximately 40 Torr. A model for the utlracold neutral plasmas, in comparison with measurements of our plasmas, can be used to extract an electron temperature. Currently our plasmas have shown to have an electron temperature of approximately 44 eV.

Produced water (PW) is an oil and gas extraction byproduct that contains a variety of contaminants. PW was traditionally disposed of in deep injection wells or released into the environment. However, these practices may have environmental consequences. The reuse of PW for power water injection (PWI) can help to reduce these impacts by providing a renewable source of water that can be used to maintain production pressure and increase oil recovery. Additionally, the reuse of PW can save oil companies money on water treatment, transporting and disposal costs. Ultrafiltration membranes are used to separate oil from water in produced water. However, ultrafiltration membranes are susceptible to severe fouling by oil molecules, which can reduce their performance. This research investigated the use of Pebax® coating to improve the performance of ultrafiltration membranes for oily-water mixture. The results showed that Pebax® coating can enhance the resistance of membranes to fouling to fouling. The optimal balance between fouling resistance and water flux was found to be achieved by applying very thin coating layers and using appropriate solvents (e.g., n-Butanol). The Pebax® coating creates an essentially defect-free layer on the membrane surface, as seen by the SEM images. Additionally, the coated membranes outperformed the untreated membranes in terms of fouling resistance. This result demonstrated that oil molecules showed less adhesion on the surface and penetration inside membrane pores, thus reducing fouling. Overall, the findings of this research point to PEBAX® coating as a potential means of enhancing the ability of ultrafiltration membranes to resist fouling in the process of separating oil from water. To analyze the long-term performance of coated membranes and to optimize the coating procedure, additional research is required.