Achieving SDG 11 will require new technologies and innovations to be deployed in the real-estate sector. Already blockchain and artificial intelligence form the foundations of smart buildings, using data on residents' personal preferences to be able to improve efficiency and comfort. This article explores the different technologies and innovations that provide significant untapped potential in the real estate sector.
Occupant behavior is one of the major factors influencing building energy consumption and contributing to uncertainty in building energy use prediction and simulation. Currently the understanding of occupant behavior is insufficient both in building design, operation and retrofit, leading to incorrect simplifications in modeling and analysis. This paper introduced the most recent advances and current obstacles in modeling occupant behavior and quantifying its impact on building energy use.
The smart grids are modern electric power grid infrastructure for enhanced efficiency and reliability through automated control, high-power converters, modern communications infrastructure, sensing and metering technologies, and modern energy management techniques based on the optimization of demand, energy and network availability. The role of buildings in this framework is very crucial. This paper addresses critical issues on smart grid technologies and the integration of buildings in this new power grid framework.
Over the past decades, detailed individual building energy models (BEM) on the one side and regional and country-level building stock models on the other side have become established modes of analysis for building designers and energy policy makers, respectively. More recently, these two toolsets have begun to merge into hybrid methods that are meant to analyze the energy performance of neighborhoods, i.e. several dozens to thousands of buildings. This paper reviews emerging simulation methods and implementation workflows for such bottom-up urban building energy models (UBEM).
Multidisciplinary, innovative and high values development of high performance, cost-effective and environmentally acceptable separation systems is highly desired to tackle the sustainability challenges that facing current desalination technology. Owing to their versatility and immense potentials to evolve scientific and technical innovations, nanotechnology is probably one of the most prominent strategies that has gained growing scientific and public recognition to provide solutions that can extend the limits of sustainability in membrane desalination technology.
Recent research on CO2 capture is focusing on the optimization of CO2 absorption using amines (mainly monoethanolamine-MEA) in order to minimize the energy consumption of this very energy-intensive process and improve the absorption efficiency. Process optimization is always required and this research is worth and necessary. However, the main concern arises when thinking of the overall process: solvent production, solvent use and regeneration, and environmental effects related to its use/emissions.
This paper presents a review of exergy analysis of solar thermal systems. It includes both various types of solar collectors and various applications of solar thermal systems. As solar collectors are an important technology when sustainability is considered, exergy analysis, which gives a more representative performance evaluation, is a valuable method to evaluate and compare possible configurations of these systems. It should be noted that this review is based on literature published in the last two years.
Every year, an estimated 1.8 million newborns die from breathing related problems. Precious time is lost when birth attendants interrupt critical ventilation to check a newborn’s heart rate by hand. Elsevier brought together five experts from diverse fields, who used their skills and creativity to brainstorm a solution. It's one example of a successful multidisciplinary approach, in this case to help the advancement of SDG 3.2, to end preventable deaths of newborns and children under 5 years of age.
This short review summarizes our understanding and perspectives on FO and PRO processes and meaningful R&D in order to develop effective and sustainable FO and PRO technologies for water reuse and osmotic power generation.
In recent years, several emerging technologies in the domain of solid-state physics have been investigated as serious alternatives for future refrigeration, heat pumping, air conditioning, or even power generation applications. These technologies relate to what is called caloric energy conversion, i.e., barocalorics, electrocalorics, magnetocalorics, and elastocalorics. Of these technologies, the greatest progress has been observed in the domain of magnetic refrigeration.
