Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2008. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains viii, 71 p. : col. ill. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 62-63).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1998. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [240]-247).

Cellulomonas find was grown on minimal media with casamino acids and yeast extract added. Avicel was found to be the best cellulosic carbon source for the production of cellulase enzymes. The Millipore Ultrafiltration System was found to be the most efficient method of concentrating the enzyme preparations. Unpretreated sawdust samples of four different softwood species were degraded between 12 and 16 percent over a 15-day treatment. Increasing the concentration of substrate lead to a lower percent degradation but a higher overall degradation. Chemical pretreatment did not appreciably increase degradability of the samples. Physical pretreatments decrease the degrada-bility of the sawdust samples. The lotech pretreatment, which is a combination of chemical and physical pretreatment, gives a substrate that is degraded by the Cellulomonas fimi enzyme preparation. The pretreatment makes 50% of the sample water soluble. In 3 days, a further 35% is degraded from large insoluble chunks into insoluble small particles which remain in suspension. There is 6% degraded into soluble state. This leaves only 9% of the initial sample left in the pellet. With longer incubation, one would expect the degradation to continue. / Science, Faculty of / Microbiology and Immunology, Department of / Graduate

In the face of global climate change, all disciplines and backgrounds have a responsibility to the shared future. The world is facing an impending environmental disaster and humanity’s current efforts are not enough to slow this change, let alone reverse it. Much more drastic efforts must be undertaken by every person and discipline. Architecture has both aesthetic and structural components that have contributed to this situation. Much like the rest of the world, the current practices of architecture are not responsive or responsible enough. The building sector has a unique role in national and global energy consumption. Not only are the structures that are created by these assorted professions responsible for consuming large amounts of annual energy, but the very materials used in their construction add millions of tons of waste to landfills each year. The building sector should not just be responsible for the long-term effects of a structure during the construction and demolition phases. Architecture’s and other design professions’ responsibilities should not end with the completion of a project. Rather, all of the choices, designs, and decisions made before, during, and after the project will echo through the ages as the structure lives on, long after the building has been occupied. There are many possible solutions to this conundrum, ranging from passive techniques to complex technologies. The incorporation of biological design into modern construction is explored in this thesis. This paper investigates the implications of current building materials in comparison to the potential of an organically informed alternative created from mycelium, the root network of fungi, and post-industrial waste. This thesis considers laboratory experiments and case studies in architecture to understand the shortcomings and potentials of organically derived structures and building materials. Original observations are undertaken to understand the effect of a mycelium composite’s design on various physical properties. This project seeks to evaluate the building blocks of architecture and reevaluate the building field from the ground up. Small individual components are assessed, and their long-term implications are explored.

M.S.

This essay will address if and how it is possible to reuse and recycle wood waste and CDWW (construction and demolition wood waste). The background will have a short introduction and then be divided into 3 sections. The first section addresses similarities and differences between linear vs. circular economy. The second section will take up bioeconomy and how it is managed in the different countries in the world, and the last part takes up wood waste management. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate from literature if it is possible to reuse and recycle wood waste and CDWW. By reviewing case studies, see if it is possible to implement a practical sustainable recycling worldwide. There are four questions that will be answered to see if it is possible. Those are: 1, Are there enough volumes of wood waste for it to be worth to reusing/recycling it? 2, What opportunities does it provide and how can it affect society, economy, and the environment? 3, Is it worth investing in facilities that only accept wood waste and reuse/recycle the material? 4, How have the trends with wood waste been according to the data collected? The methods that have been used are literature study, qualitative and quantitative methods. Qualitative as an interview has been conducted, and quantitative as data for wood waste in Borås has been compiled. The result showed that there exist enough volumes for it to be worth reusing and recycling, however, the volumes has gone down significantly and are not stable, though this could be argued due to the COVID-19 pandemic and will most likely change and go up in volume within the next few years. There have not been any studies on how the society could be affected by reusing and recycle wood waste, although from an economic and environmental perspective it shows a positive outcome, such as new jobs get created and less deforestation and less reduction of biological diversity. Depending on the type of wood waste the facility receives, it can affect whether it is profitable or not, as the more hazardous chemicals exist in the wood residues, the more difficult and expensive the treatments and recycling becomes.

In present day society there is an artificial dichotomy between wastes and resources that is perhaps best summed up by the Western Sydney Waste Board slogan 'there is no such thing as waste � only resources in the wrong place and at the wrong time'. Waste management was originally driven by managing the health consequences of wrong time/place materials. This has changed and the significant driver is now the sustainable utilisation of resources, that is, trying to optimally recover as resources (right time/place) those materials that present as wastes requiring management. However, it is not acceptable to justify a resource recovery option purely on the basis that it is diverting material away from landfill. Preferences are emerging for recovery activities that maximise the resource value of a material according to techno-economic, environmental and socio-political criteria; collectively known as the criteria of sustainability. The people and organisations articulating these preferences include owners/operators of resource recovery centres, proponents of alternative waste management technologies, waste planners and managers at both a state and local government level and environmental NGOs representing community interests, in addition to the generators of waste at a domestic, commercial and industrial, and construction and demolition level. It is therefore important to be able to answer the question of 'what is the optimal or most sustainable resource recovery option for materials presenting as waste to landfill in the Greater Sydney Region?' The point of departure for this thesis is twofold. Firstly, that optimal resource recovery options (also known as alternative waste management technologies) can be identified by understanding the context and system drivers and constraints within the system of waste generation and utilisation, by modelling the system using industrial ecology (specifically Materials Flux Analysis) and by using the technology assessment framework developed by the NSW Alternative Waste Management Technologies and Practices Inquiry to evaluate the available options. Secondly, that should the assessment framework from the NSW Inquiry prove to be unsuitable as a framework for evaluation, then an improved and refined assessment framework can be constructed in order to identify optimal resource recovery options and that this process can be successfully demonstrated using wood waste as a case study. The context of waste as an issue has shifted from local government control (pre-1970s) to state government control through the Department of Environment and Conservation. This transition followed experiments with organisations such as the NSW Waste Boards and Resource NSW, in addition to state targets such as a 60% reduction of waste to landfill by the year 2000. In addition to this backdrop of change from a government administrative perspective, there are also a suite of often conflicting drivers and constraints influencing the process of resource recovery. For example, sustainable development is a public policy driver for the integration of environmental and societal concerns, but can also constrain new innovation if competing 'status quo' utilisation options are not subject to the same scrutiny. Similarly, legislation acts as a constraint to resource recovery options by establishing license conditions, prohibiting some energy recovery options and setting recovery criteria; however legislation also acts as a driver for resource recovery options that generate renewable electricity or act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Other drivers and constraints include social, technical and economic issues and concerns in addition to environmental impacts such as emissions to air, land and water. Industrial ecology is a model for viewing system components as part of a dependent and interrelated greater whole. Within the context of Industrial Ecology, waste is a by-product of manufacture available as a beneficial input into other processes. Using Materials Flux Analysis as a tool to build a model of waste generation and utilisation, elements within the system are presented as a series of stocks (sources), technology interventions (transformation flows) and sinks (markets). The stocks or sources of materials for resource recovery are categorised as Municipal Solid (MSW), Commercial and Industrial (C&I) or Construction and Demolition (C&D) wastes. Approximately seven million tonnes of waste is generated in the Greater Sydney Region (nearly two and a half million tonnes of materials recovered for recycling and four and a half million tonnes of materials disposed of to landfill). The purpose of technology intervention is to transform the material into a product that is suited to the end market (sink). Markets are grouped according to reuse (same function and form), direct recycling (same supply chain), indirect recycling (different supply chain) and energy recovery (either as process heat, electricity or co-generation, a combination of the two). Landfill is also a potential sink for materials and in this sense can be thought of as a negative value market. The Alternative Waste Management Technologies and Practices Inquiry provided an assessment framework for resource recovery technologies. Each technology was measured and compared against 16 evaluation criteria, resulting in a score out of one hundred. Material sorting scored the highest (81.5), incineration the lowest (50.8) with most of the biological technologies performing �well� (64.6 � 71.7) and with the landfill technologies performing 'moderately well' (60.4 - 61.4). The positive features of the Inquiry included the overview of alternative resource recovery technologies, waste generation and other issues pertinent to decision making and resource recovery. The negatives of the Inquiry arise from the inadequacies of the assessment framework, which lacked technology options, system boundary definition and requisite evaluation criteria in addition to inconsistencies in scoring approaches. By undertaking a sensitivity analysis on the Inquiry�s results, it is shown that rank order reversal results from the allocation of weightings. The improved and refined assessment framework, constructed to overcome identified inadequacies of the Inquiry�s approach, focussed on clearly identifying the problem to be addressed and the primary decision maker involved in the process; ensuring that appropriate options for evaluation were included; defining the system boundary for the assessment; selecting necessary evaluation criteria; adopting a more sophisticated system for scoring; and using a sensitivity analysis to validate the results of the resource recovery option evaluation. Wood waste was used as a case study for this second assessment methodology. Wood waste refers to the end-of-life products, failed products, offcuts, shavings and sawdust from all timber products. Approximately 350,000 tonnes of wood waste are disposed of to landfill each year. This comprises untreated timber (hard wood and soft wood), engineered timber products (particleboard, medium density fibreboard and plywood) and treated timber (predominately copper chrome arsenic). Eight wood resource recovery options are selected for evaluation within the Greater Sydney Region with a different approach to scoring that has the advantage of 'scaling up' the best performers within each attribute (highest score) while 'scaling down' the worst performers (no score). Under this evaluation, an on-site purpose built energy facility is the most preferred option with particleboard manufacture the least preferred option. A sensitivity analysis of the results reveals that the scores of each technology option are sensitive to the weightings of the decision maker. When the change in rankings is examined, it is identified that two eight wood recovery options undergo a large rank reversal. A critique of the results of the wood evaluation reveals five major flaws. Firstly the evaluation produces non-highest resource value results that are non-intuitive (and arguably misleading), for example the poor performance of reuse and particleboard against energy generation options. Secondly, the recording of a single summary score for each recovery option hides unacceptable performance levels in some criteria. For example, the top scorer of Primary Energy On-site hides the fact that such an option is likely to have no political desirability (likely public opposition to 'incineration' within the Sydney air-shed), calling into question its ability to be implemented as a solution. Thirdly there is a reliance on judgement for the scoring of options and weighting of preferences, calling into doubt the accuracy of scores. Fourthly, the rankings of recovery options by the assessment framework are sensitive to the allocation of weightings. Finally and most importantly, the refined evaluation approach suffers from the 'discrete option syndrome', the scoring of each recovery option in isolation with no ability to look at integrated systems with joint recovery options. This is pinpointed as a fundamental flaw in the process of both the Inquiry and the wood evaluation. This leads to the conclusion that the founding assertions of this thesis were false. That is to say that the assessment framework developed by the NSW Alternative Waste Management Technologies and Practices Inquiry is not suitable for use in evaluating resource recovery options. Furthermore a refined assessment framework based on this approach is also unable to identify optimal resource recovery options as demonstrated using wood waste as a case study. The results of this research points to the overall conclusion that any discrete option evaluation and assessment for resource recovery technologies that results in a single summary score for each option will be fundamentally flawed, providing no value in determining optimal resource recovery solutions for the Greater Sydney Region. A systems approach is suggested as an alternative method for the evaluation of optimal resource recovery, the starting point of which is to ask 'what is the highest resource value of the components in the material stream under consideration and how could a network of infrastructure be designed in order to allow materials to flow to their highest resource value use?' A feature of such an integrated approach is a focus on the materials composition of recovered resources, as opposed to recovery technologies, resulting in a 'fit for purpose' as opposed to a 'forced fit' style of resource recovery. It is recommended that further research and public policy efforts be made in logistics planning across the Greater Sydney Region (as opposed to a regional or local government area) in order to create network opportunities for integrated flows of materials to move toward their highest resource value.

Logging and forest thinning operations generate large amounts of residues in the form of small trees, branches and foliage that are usually left on the ground to decay or are burned. These resources are readily available, but it is uneconomical to remove them from the forest. The potential utilization of these resources was investigated for western juniper. This species is invading rangeland in the Interior West, altering the ecology of the land, and farmers are being encouraged to remove it. However, limited markets for the wood make removal costly. Developing uses for other parts of the stem could make removal more economically attractive. Western juniper foliage and twigs were steam distilled to obtain essential oils which were tested for their activity against subterranean termites and fungi. Residues from the steam distillation were pretreated with dilute sulfuric acid and digested with enzymes to determine their digestibility. The goal was to determine if an integrated operation involving steam distillation to remove essential oils, followed by enzymatic digestion of extraction residues was feasible. Essential oil recovery from foliage averaged 0.77% wet weight, while yields from twigs were about 0.13% wet weight. Foliage essential oil showed high antifungal and termiticidal activities at the concentrations tested. Total sugar yields from foliage extraction residues (40-55%) were higher than those obtained from branchwood residues (15-25%). The highest yields were obtained at 121°C and 1 hour pretreatment in 1% sulfuric acid. These results show that an integrated operation involving steam distillation of western juniper foliage to remove essential oil and enzymatic digestion of extraction residues is technically feasible. Additional work to determine the optimum distillation and pretreatment conditions for foliage would be needed. / Graduation date: 2012

The purpose with this report was to investigate the possibilities for smaller district heating plants to use recovered wood waste (RT-flis) as fuel. A smaller district heating plant in the north of Sweden (Sorsele värmeverk AB) was the main study object. To be able to incinerate this fuel there are a number of requirements that need to be fulfilled according to the law. In addition to these requirements, the incineration of this fuel also needs to be profitable. The results for this study were obtained through interviews, investigations of the incineration laws and the fuel supply, as well as an analysis of the opinions occurring within the personnel of the heating plants. The results show that the possibility to incinerate RT-flis depends on the appropriate technology; the possibility to fulfill the requirements of the law, as well as it has to be profitable. All these parameters are in close relation to each other. Whether it is technologically possible to use RT-flis largely depends on the construction and technology of the heater, which affects the possibility to fulfill the requirements on, for example, air emissions. Economically, main issues include investments into measuring equipment, but also the accessibility of fuel. The most important aspect is the quality of the fuel (e.g., contaminations).

The preservative concentration difference in treated wood was investigated to understand the component distribution; a study of different chemical extractions of treated wood waste was carried out and certain reagents were realized to be feasible to the preservative component removal. During fixation, the preservative components redistributed between earlywood and latewood and concentration gradients at depths also developed. Different solvent extractions of CCA treated wood were tested and ion exchange, chelation and metal dissolving were all mechanisms for component extraction. The transition of Cr(III) to Cr(VI) by oxidizing reagents (NaClO and H2O2) can make possible the direct reuse of extracted chemicals as a preservative. Different reaction factors in the oxidant extractions were compared and higher pHs significantly improved the oxidizing capability of the reagents and CCA component removal. Fresh and aged CCA treated wood generally responsed similarly to the oxidant extractions. However, arsenic in aged wood was more difficult to be removed by NaClO, while, H2O2 was more efficient to extract CCA components from aged wood than fresh wood. Monoethanolamine (Mea) efficiently extracted copper (above 90%) from ACQ treated wood and the formation of stable neutral Cu(Mea)2 in sufficient Mea solution is the main mechanism for Mea extraction. Little wood structure degradation occurred during the process. Mea (10%~15%) extraction was fast and the effect of temperature was insignificant. Cu diffusion in the longitudinal direction was the most significant compared to other wood directions. To further promote Mea extraction, repeated extraction (batch-based and column-based) was performed and proved to be more efficient, feasible and economical than one-time extraction. Column-based continuous Mea extraction showed both high Cu removal (up to 99%) and Cu accumulation in the extract. After the preservative treated wood waste is decontaminated significantly, the extract solution can be reused by directly mixing with the preservative treating solution, which is the most straightforward procedure for the recycling of chemicals removed from the preservative treated wood.