Marina Jovanovic

Biomass-fired power plant : the sustainability option

Abstract Biomass use for power generation has become an attractive option for the increase of energy production with the increase of efficiency, decrease of environment degradation and waste utilization. Justification of the biomass use benefits requires a multi-criteria assessment based on the evaluation of economic, environmental, technological and social aspects. In this respect, the need for the evaluation of biomass-fired power plant is of great interest for the validation of benefits of biomass resources. The paper presents an outline of a multi-criteria method for the evaluation of the General Sustainability Index as the quality measurement of different potential options of the biomass-fired power plant and their comparison with other new and renewable power plants. A number of options are evaluated with appropriate selection of indicators reflecting economic, environment, technological and social parameters. Among options under consideration there are those reflecting mixed fuel of biomass and fossil organic fuel power plants. Special attention is devoted to the use of constraints giving priority to individual criteria. It is shown that the potential quality merit, which describes the priority of individual options under specific constraint is the potential tool for the energy system evaluation. This decision-making procedure enlightens the potential priority of biomass-fired power plants in comparison with other renewable energy sources.

Chemical characterization, antioxidant, genotoxic and in vitro cytotoxic activity assessment of Juniperus communis var. saxatilis

Chemical composition and antioxidative, genotoxic and cytotoxic potential of essential oil (EO) and post-distillation waste (PDW) of Serbian Juniperus communis L. var. saxatilis Pall. was studied in human lung carcinoma (A549) and normal lung fibroblast (MRC-5) cells. GC-MS analysis identified 93.95% of total EO content and determined α-pinen as a dominant component (23.61%). LC-MS/MS analysis of PDW pointed at rutin (12.2 mg g-1) and quinic acid (11.1 mg g-1) as the most abundant. Antioxidativity of PDW was strong in DPPH (IC50 was 5.27 μg mL-1), and moderate in TBA and FRAP assays. Both substances were more cytotoxic to A549 than to MRC-5 cells. Obtained IC50 values were 69.4 μg mL-1 and 120 μg mL-1 for EO, and 1.27 mg mL-1 and 2.86 mg mL-1 for PDW, respectively. PDW was genotoxic (0.3 mg mL-1 and 1 mg mL-1 in A549 and MRC-5 cells, respectively) and induced apoptosis and arrested cell cycle in G2/M phase in A549 cells (0.3 mg mL-1). In mixtures with doxorubicin cytotoxicity of EO and PDW increased, and combination index values (0.12-0.18) revealed clear synergistic effect, stronger in cancer cells. This indicates that J. communis var. saxatilis could decrease the chemotherapeutic doses of doxorubicin, potentially reducing its side effects.

Application of multi-criteria assessment in decision-making proces in planning of sustainable development of energy system options

Coal combustion power plant Kolubara A has five thermal units with total installed capacity of 270 MW operates as a part of Public Enterprise which has planned to accept and apply the Clean Development Mechanism (new power plants on lignite and natural gas with higher energy efficiency as well as activities related to the rehabilitation and modernization of existing facilities). Two units were put in operation before more than fifty years and in order to extend the lifetime of these blocks in the process of revitalization, in this paper, beside an existing option which considers coal (lignite) combustion, are analysed possible options of thermal power units with gas and renewable energy sources: biomass, renewable solid fuels, waste materials, wind and sun. Paper presents seven energy system options of the thermal unit status which are described with suitable chosen indicators in respect to different aspects of sustainability: economical, ecological, social and resources indicators. In this paper energy indicators are defined as a tool for the sustainability assessment of energy system options. ASPID method of multi-criteria assessment was used to calculate general index of sustainability and obtained ranking of options. This study presented and analysed cases, with predefined constraints when priority has environmental indicator and different conditions where one of sub-indicators have priority, as an example of applying multi-criteria method.

Speleological and Hydrogeological Factors of Urbanization and Development of Road Network on Mountain Zlatibor (Western Serbia)

Geologically, the Zlatibor mountain is characterized by the presence of three lithological formations: thick carbonate layers of Middle and Upper Triassic age, the diabase-hornstone formation and the ultramaphite of Jurassic age. The areas where Triassic carbonate sediments are developed represent typical merokarst with numerous surfaces and underground landforms. Bearing in mind the vastness of the Zlatibor mountain (900 km2), as well as excellent opportunities for diversification of tourism supply, the significance of representing speleological-hydrogeological exploration is clear for each future development. As a result of carried out explorations maps are obtained, and areas of natural resources jeopardized by urbanization and road network development mapped. In the paper, there is presented the discussion of all work carried out, then given the characterization of the terrain according to speleological and hydrogeological factors, after which the techno-economical evaluation of obtained results follows. The concept of integrated management in natural resources has been adopted as a method without which it is not possible to form spatial plan in the regions like the Zlatibor Mt. region.

Sustainability Assessment of Solar Energy Systems

Solar energy systems are becoming potential option for numerous applications. It has been shown that the application of solar energy system is strongly dependent on criteria’s used in their evaluation. Single criteria evaluation of solar energy systems has shown its deficiency due to limited possibility to compare them with other potential options. In particular, present economic system is based on the econometric analysis with priority given to the optimum obtained by the economically justified optimization function. For this reason, it has become needed to introduce multi-criteria evaluation procedure in the assessment of solar energy system and its comparison with other potential options. This paper presents evaluation of the solar photovoltaic system and its comparison with other renewable energy system options for stand-alone application. In this evaluation following energy systems will be taking into a consideration: grid electric energy supply, wind energy system, gas turbine with cogeneration, small hydro energy system and solar photo-voltaic energy system. In the evaluation of these systems the multi-criteria evaluation procedure is used. The multi-criteria evaluation procedure will comprise a following criteria’s: economic, environmental, technological and social indicators. Each of indicators will be based on the sub-criteria which are defined in the paper. The sustainability index as the agglomeration function indicators will be used in the determination of the rating among the options under consideration. Special emphasize in evaluation is given to to the conditional priority of indicators leading to the investigation of the effect of the indicator priority to the finale rating among options.Copyright