Long-term characterization of air lime mortars with ceramic waste

Due to their exposure to environmental conditions, outer coatings composed by render and painting system are usually the first construction elements to deteriorate and require intervention. A correct conservation and rehabilitation of these materials is fundamental once they provide protection to other façade materials. It is known that old mortar renders were essentially air lime based mortars. To maintain the integrity of the whole wall-render elements, the image of the building and to avoid accelerated degradation, conservation and rehabilitation must be implemented with compatible mortars. As that, lime based mortars would be preferable. It was also common, in ancient renders, the incorporation of ceramic residues, which is, nowadays, an abundant material, especially in Central Region of Portugal. The reuse of these materials has great relevance once their landfilling causes serious environmental issues. In an attempt to combine the environmental and technical advantages of the use of ceramic waste in mortars’ production for rehabilitation purposes, a research has been developed at the University of Coimbra, in cooperation with Nova University of Lisbon, on the long term behaviour of air lime mortars with ceramic residues. In this paper the most significant up to one year results of an experimental campaign with air lime mortars with 1:3 and 1:2 volumetric proportions and ceramic residues are presented.

Valorization of agroindustrial waste

The main objective of this work is the valorization of residues from agro-industry giving them an added value. The valorization was performed by using a "green" and sustainable solvent - supercritical fluid, in this case carbon dioxide. Two residues and one biomass were used to produce two different final products, thereby emphasizing the versatility of the waste recovery - spent coffee grounds and microalgae Chlorella protothecoides to produce biodiesel, and tomato pomace to extract carotenoids. In the first part of this work it was demonstrated the possibility to obtain a conversion of coffee spent grounds oil into biodiesel, through an enzymatic transesterification reaction, of 98.01% with the following operating conditions: molar ratio oil:methanol 1:24, residence time 0.8 min, pressure 25 MPa, temperature 313,15K. In this first phase, it was also used the microalgae Chlorella protothecoides, a biomass, to produce biodiesel and favorable results were obtained with this green process compared with a traditional process - basic catalysis / acid. In the second part of this work, by an extraction with supercritical CO2 it was obtained 3.38% oil from tomato pomace under the following conditions: pressure 35.1 MPa, temperature 313,15K. It was found that this oil contains various carotenoids: β-carotene, lutein and lycopene. The latter is present in larger amount.

Social tariffs for water and waste services in mainland Portugal: An impact analysis

This paper proposes to quantify the effect of social tariffs (ST) in the Portuguese water and waste sector (WWS). It calculates the amount of subsidy implicit in ST schemes, characterising the existing tariffs in 2011 and producing a synthetic tariff scene where the regulator’s recommendation is respected. This is the first time such an exercise is undertaken and it is very relevant in a context of deep economic crisis. Results suggest that there are fewer beneficiaries than what income eligibility criteria would imply and that putting the regulator’s recommendation in practice would considerably raise subsidy amounts, potentially leading to a severe increase in non-subsidised user tariffs to allow for break-even.

Consumer satisfaction with water, wastewater and waste services in Portugal

While the concept of consumer satisfaction is a central topic in modern marketing theory and practice, citizens' satisfaction with public services, and especially water and waste services, is a eld that still remains empirically rather unexplored. The following study aims to contribute to this area by analysing the determinants of user satisfaction in the water, wastewater and waste sector in Portugal, using a unique survey of 1070 consumers undertaken by the Portuguese Water and Waste Regulator ERSAR. I perform an analysis of the relation between overall service satisfaction and attributespeci c service satisfaction with an ordered logit model. I then explore if subjective consumer satisfaction can be re ected by ERSAR's technical performance indicators. The results suggest that overall consumer satisfaction is driven by consumer's satisfaction with speci c service aspects but unrelated to socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. Furthermore, I show that there is no monotonic association between ERSAR's technical performance indicators and consumers' levels of satisfaction.