The Circular Economy – Best Available Techniques

Moving towards a circular economy is a long-term goal of the EU and seen as an essential contribution to the efforts to develop a sustainable, low carbon, resource-efficient and competitive economy.    

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Microgeneration and the network as an energy storage entity

Recent technological and political changes have brought battery-backed “family-sized” electric power generation closer to reality. What does this mean and where are we heading?    

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Computational Electromagnetics – simulating the harmful effects of electromagnetic fields

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Containment Engineering – A systematic approach to handle highly potent active ingredients and pathogens

The need for the contained handling and processing of pharmaceutical materials and pathogens is on the rise due to the increased focus on health and safety and the growing interest in the development of High Potency Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (HPAPIs). A wide range of containment equipment is available on the market to meet the processing and operational needs of development and manufacturing. Selecting suitable equipment, however, requires an in-depth understanding of containment aspects in order to avoid operational hazards and large capital investments resulting from an ‘oversizing’ approach.

In containment equipment selection the focus is on preventing the personnel from being exposed to hazardous substances. The equipment cannot, however, fully prevent exposure. It is thus important to ensure that exposure through containment equipment over the operational course of time is less than the product/pharmaceutical material exposure limit. The selection of suitable containment equipment requires a thorough understanding of product and equipment related exposure limits.

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The MetNet Mars Lander – Probing the Red Planet for climatological data

A new Mars lander concept has been developed in cooperation between the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) and the Lavochkin Association (LA). Instead of retrorockets, which were used in previous Mars missions, the lander concept relies on the use of aerodynamic breaking. This approach will greatly reduce fuel costs and improve the delivered-payload-to-mass ratio.   

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Performance monitoring of heat exchangers – Not as simple as it seems

When a heat exchanger generates little heat loss, it may seem that the device works in every way as intended; the heat received by the cold fluid corresponds very well to the heat delivered by the hot fluid. The efficiency approaches unity and the customer can be informed that the heat exchanger works in the desired manner. A closer look, however, shows that the performance evaluation of heat exchangers is not quite such a simplistic matter.   

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Air tightness testing for biosafety level 3 – In search of an international standard and sound practice

All bio-containment guidelines and inspection documents set requirements for airtight containment boundaries around biohazards. Current international containment guidelines only scratch the surface for biosafety level 3 (BSL-3) and the available tests proposed are not entirely suitable for such facilities. Some steps in the right direction have been taken, notably as outlined in the standards put forth in the Australia-New Zealand model for their Physical Containment 3 designation.

There are several reasons why airtight containment boundaries are required, the most obvious of which is that they prevent the escape of airborne biohazards. A much less obvious function is that they also prevent the escape of the decontamination gases or vapours used. These gases and vapours are, in fact, the most likely dangerous airborne agents.

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Virtualisation of automation systems – a brave new world

Automation has developed at a rapid pace in recent times. The surge in development has seen automation suppliers and component manufacturers for process control launch new generations of process controllers and bus and I/O components on the market. The use of ICT technology and databases has increased in distributed control system (DCS). This increasing use dictates that we to come up with new ways of efficiently utilising the computational power and opportunities computers present. ICT virtualisation can achieve significant savings in the delivery of automation systems and in producing high levels of system flexibility and usability.

Virtualisation refers to the use of virtual computers in one or more servers, the physical resources of which are jointly used by the virtual computers with the use of virtualisation software (Hypervisor). A virtual machine is a program-based object which corresponds to a physical computer in terms of logic and functionality.

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