Tag: economic assessment

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Economic losses caused by flooding due to global warming

In Europe, floods are linked to high fluctuations of atmospheric pressure. These variations are also known as the North Atlantic Oscillation. Stefan Zanardo and his colleagues at Risk Management Solutions, London, UK, analyzed historical records of severe floodings in Europe since 1870. They compared patterns of atmospheric pressure at the time of the floods. When the North Atlantic Oscillation is in a positive state, a depression over Iceland drives wind and storm throughout northern Europe. In a negative state, however, it makes southern Europe moister than usual. Normally, floods occur in northern Europe. They cause the most damage if the North Atlantic Oscillation was positive in winter. If enough rain has already fallen to saturate the soil, high risk conditions for flooding are met. Air pressure in Europe may change with global warming and public administrations should take this into account when assessing flood risk in a region, the researchers say.

This is important because flooding in Europe often causes loss of life, significant property damage , and business interruptions. Global warming will further worsen this situation. Risk distribution will change as well. The frequent occurrence of catastrophic flooding in recent years has sparked strong interest in this problem in both the public and private sectors. The public sector has been working to improve early warning systems. In fact, these early warning systems have economic benefits. In addition, various risk mitigating strategies have been implemented in European countries. These include flood protection, measures to increase risk awareness, and risk transfer through better dissemination of flood insurance. The fight against the root cause, global warming that is, however, is still far behind to what is needed.

Correlations between large-scale climate patterns, and in particular the North Atlantic Oscillation, and extreme events in the water cycle on the European continent have long been described in the literature. With with more severe and more often flooding as well as alarming global warming scenarios, raising concerns over future flood-related economic losses have become the focus of public attention. Although it is known that climatic patterns also control meteorological events, it is not always clear whether this link will affect the frequency and severeness fo flooding and the associated economic losses. In their study, the researchers relate the North Atlantic Oscillation to economic flood losses.

The researchers used recent data from flood databases as well as disaster models to establish this relation. The models allowed the quantification of the economic losses that ultimately caused by the North Atlantic Oscillation. These losses vary widely between the countries within the influence of the North Atlantic Oscillation. The study shows that the North Atlantic Oscillation can well predict the average losses in the long term. Based on the predictability of the North Atlantic Oscillation, the researchers argue that, in particular, the temporal variations of the flood risks caused by climate oscillations can be forecast. This can help to take encounter catastrophic flood events early on. As a result, flood damage can be minimized or even avoided. As scientists improve their predictions for the North Atlantic Oscillation, society will be better prepared for future flooding.

(Photo: Wikipedia, Stefan Penninger, Sweden)

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Nanomaterials in bio-electrical systems could improve performance

Since Professor Potter’s discovery of the ability of microbes to turn organic molecules into electricity using microbial fuel cells (MFC) more than a century ago (Potter MC, 1911, Proc Roy Soc Lond Ser B 84:260–276), much research was done to improve the performance. Unfortunately, this did not not produce an economically viable technology. MFCs never made it out of the professors’ class rooms. This may change now that we have advanced nanomaterials available.

The testing of nanomaterials in bio-electrical systems has experienced a Cambrian explosion. The focus usually was on electrodes, membranes, and in the electrolyte with infinite possibilities to find high performing composites. The benefits of such materials include a large surface area, cost savings, and scalability. All are required to successfully commercialize bio-electrical systems. The large-scale commercial application could be wastewater treatment. In our recently published literature survey we discovered that there is no common benchmark for performance, as it is usual in photovoltaics or for batteries. To normalize our findings, we used dollar per peak power capacity as ($/Wp) as it is standard in photovoltaics. The median cost for air cathodes of MFCs is $4,700 /Wp ($2,800 /m²). Platinum on carbon (Pt/C) and carbon nanofibers are the best performing materials with $500 /Wp (Pt/C $2,800 /m²; nanofibers $2,000 /m²).

We found that carbon-based nanomaterials often deliver performance comparable to Pt/C. While MFCs are still far away from being profitable, microbial electrolysis cells already are. With these new carbon-based nanomaterials, MFCs however, are moving closer to become an economic reality. Graphene and carbon nanotubes are promising materials when they are combined with minerals such as manganese or iron oxides. However, the price of graphene is still too expensive to let MFCs become an economic reality in wastewater treatment. The costs of microbial electrolysis, however, are already so low that it is a serious alternative to traditional wastewater treatment as we show in the featured image above. For high strength wastewater, a treatment plant can in fact turn into a power plant with excess power being offered to surrounding neighborhoods. Reducing the costs of microbial electrolysis is accomplished by using a combination of cheap steel and graphite.

Relationship between MEC reactor capacity and total electrode cost including anode and cathode. Errors are standard deviations of four different tubular reactor designs. Anodes are graphite granules and cathodes are steel pipes

 

Graphite, in turn, is the precursor of graphene, a promising material for MFC electrodes. When graphite flakes are reduced to a few graphene layers, some of the most technologically important properties of the material are greatly improved. These include the overall surface and the elasticity. Graphene is therefore a very thin graphite. Many manufacturers of graphene use this to sell a material that is really just cheap graphite. In the journal Advanced Materials Kauling and colleagues published a systematic study of graphene from sixty manufacturers and find that many high-priced graphene products consist mainly of graphite powder. The study found that less than 10% of the material in most products was graphene. None of the tested products contained more than 50% graphene. Many were heavily contaminated, most likely with chemicals used in the production process. This can often lead to a material having catalytic properties which would not have been observed without contamination, as reported by Wang and Pumera.

There are many methods of producing graphene. One of the simplest is the deposition on a metallic surface, as we describe it in our latest publication:

Single-layer graphene (SLG) and multilayer graphene (MLG) are synthesized by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) from a carbon precursor on catalytic metal surfaces. In a surface-mediated CVD process, the carbon precursor, e.g. Isopropyl alcohol (IPA) is decomposed on the metal surface, e.g. Cu or Ni. In order to control the number of graphene layers formed, the solubility of the carbon precursor on the metal catalyst surface must be taken into account. Due to the low solubility of the precursor in Cu, SLG can be formed. It is difficult to grow SLG on the surface of a metal with a high affinity for the precursor.

Protocol:
The protocol is a cheap, safe and simple method for the synthesis of MLG films by CVD in 30-45 minutes in a chemistry lab. A nickel foil is submersed in acetic acid for etching and then transferred to an airtight quartz tube. The same protects the system from ambient oxygen and water vapor. Nitrogen gas is bubbled through the IPA and the resulting IPA saturated gas is passed through the closed system. The exhaust gases are washed in a beaker with a water or a gas wash bottle. The stream is purged for 5 minutes at a rate of about 50 cc/min. As soon as the flame reaches a Meker burner 575-625 °C, it is positioned under the nickel foil, so that sufficient energy for the formation of graphene is available. The flame is extinguished after 5-10 minutes to stop the reaction and to cool the system for 5 minutes. The graphene-coated Ni foil is obtained.

But how thin must graphite flakes be to behave as graphene? A common idea supported by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is that flakes with more than ten graphene layers consist essentially of graphite. Thermodynamics say that each atomic layer in a flake with ten or fewer layers at room temperature behaves as a single graphene crystal. In addition, the stiffness of the graphite flakes increases with the layer thickness, which means that thin graphene flakes are orders of magnitude more elastic than thicker graphite flakes.

Unfortunately, to actually use graphene in bioelectric reactors, you still have to make it yourself. The ingredients can be found in our DIY Shop.