Peter Baccini

Metabolism of the Anthroposphere

The topic treated in this book is the dynamics of material fluxes in the immediate human environment - the anthroposphere. A comprehensive understanding of mans activities in connection with, for example, nutrition, hygiene, habitation and transport is essential for early recognition of limitations of resources and environmental impact. The methodology of flux analysis is introduced, with examples on how to qualify and quantify the metabolism of complex biological and cultural systems. This is an entirely new approach to describing geogenic and anthropogenic systems. The perceptions gained by material flux analysis complement those obtained in life sciences (e.g. human toxicology), environmental sciences (e.g. ecotoxicology) and social sciences (e.g. economics, sociology). Their application enables a control on regional material fluxes (resource and waste management, environmental impact studies) and the devlopment of kybernetic strategies for the metabolic evolution of the anthroposphere.

Chemical behaviour of municipal solid waste incinerator bottom ash in monofills

A method is presented to predict the short-term (months to years) and long-term (> 30 years) chemical behaviour of bottom ash from municipal solid waste incinerators in monofills. It is based on bottom ash composition and laboratory kinetic studies of bottom ash with water. Bottom ash after the quench tank is a reactive mixture in which slow and fast acid/base reactions occur. These intrinsic acid/base reactions continue for at least several months, and the end point is not yet known. The heavy metal concentrations observed in the aqueous extracts reflect primarily the advance of these reactions. Consequently leaching tests based solely on short-term (hours to months) extraction procedures cannot predict the chemical behaviour of bottom ash in monofills. However, laboratory experiments with samples of bottom ash, in which the intrinsic acid/base reactions have proceeded differently, provide useful information on the nature of chemical reactions significant in the short- and long-term.

Regional Material Management and Environmental Protection

Abstract The goal of environmental protection is to prevent damage by early recognition of possible hazards. In the present paper, the potential of materials accounting techniques to forewarn of critical loadings on water, air and soil is assessed. For this purpose, the anthropogenic and natural contributions to the metabolism of a region are measured and estimated respectively. The control of man-made material fluxes to the environment is discussed with regard to a waste management concept based on sustainable fluxes of emissions and final storage quality of landfill materials. According to the results, regional material balances are powerful tools for integrated waste management: they allow the setting of priorities in waste management by identifying important material quantities and qualities, they are the base for the design and evaluation of waste treatment technologies, they are necessary for environmental impact statements, and they allow the recognition and minimization of the overall flux of materials from the anthroposphere to the environment.

Long‐term Coordination of Timber Production and Consumption Using a Dynamic Material and Energy Flow Analysis

Summary A dynamic model for wood and energy flows is used to analyze regional timber management. The model combines a sitequality-dependent forest-growth module with modules for the timber industry, timber products use, waste management, and energy supply. The model is calibrated with data of a Swiss lowland region for the period of 1900‐1997. Scenarios are developed for the period until 2100 in order to discuss possible future roles of domestic timber. Model simulations show that, with present strategies, timber overproduction will further increase in the twenty-first century because of an increase in forest site quality in the second half of the twentieth century, among other reasons. The increase in building gross floor area of the region by a factor of 5 during the twentieth century coincides with a reduction of timber use in building construction by a factor of 4.5, from 90 kg/m 2 to 20 kg/m 2 . Increasing timber density in buildings could address overproduction; however, a strategy of timber construction could not be accomplished with domestic timber alone. A balance of production and consumption on the present level could also be achieved in a scenario in which the present building stock is gradually exchanged during the twenty-first century with buildings that exclusively use a combination of solar panels on roofs and domestic firewood and used wood as heat-energy sources. These replacement buildings would have density typical of late twentieth-century buildings, and they would need to perform on a low-energy standard of not more than 130 MJ/m 2 /yr.

MELIMEX, an experimental heavy metal pollution study: Chemical speciation and biological availability of copper in lake water

The chemical speciation of dissolved copper was investigated in waters from the limno-corrals of the MELIMEX project and compared with speciation data from other Swiss lakes. Copper is complexed primarily by organic ligands having molecular sizes between 104 and 103 daltons. The mean concentration of the ligands is approximately 5×10−7 mole/mg DOC. The conditional stability constants (pH=8.8) are about 1011. An increased metal load did not induce an increase of binding ligands. A comparison of calculated Cu2+ concentration with corresponding copper contents in the biomass leads to the conclusion that organic ligands and pH are the most important factors in deciding the biological availability of copper. However the sorption capacity of the biomass depends as well on the variety of plankton species.

Chemical speciation of carbon in municipal solid waste incinerator residues.

Incinerators do not achieve a complete mineralization of organic constituents of municipal solid waste. The solid residues (bottom ash, boiler ash and air pollution control residues) contain carbon which can be determined as total organic carbon (TOC). This work focuses on the TOC composition and its significance to the genesis and diagenesis of the solid residues. An analytical procedure is presented to characterize carbon species by different chemical and microscopic analytical methods. The procedure is based on two steps. In the first step a quantitative classification of TOC into four different carbon species (elemental carbon, water extractable organic carbon, dichloromethane extractable organic carbon and non extractable organic carbon) is performed to obtain a first survey of the TOC composition. Based on this survey a further characterization of individual carbon species is performed. The results of the qualitative and quantitative characterization of carbon species allow to postulate hypotheses on the influence of organic carbon on the long-term behavior of the solid residues.

Transport processes of copper and zinc in a highly eutrophic and meromictic lake

Lake Baldegg was chosen to study the influence of a permanent anaerobic hypolimnion on the transport of copper and zinc. The evaluation of concentration variations in function of time and depth and the sedimentation rates lead to the conclusion that copper, in contrast to zinc, is sorbed additionally on newly formed iron particles at the Fe3+/Fe2+ interface and transported on the ‘iron wheel’. A flux scheme for the hypolimnic transport of copper is quantified in a one-dimensional diffusion model. By this the observed variations of concentration profiles can be explained.

Untersuchungen über den Schwermetallhaushalt in Seen

In the mesotrophic Lake of Lucerne (Bay of Horw) and in the eutrophic Lake of Alpnach concentration and sedimentation of iron, copper, zinc, cadmium and lead were investigated as a function of time and depth, and compared with a series of physical and chemical parameters. A metal balance was made for the Lake of Alpnach. A model for the distribution of the metals between biomass, allochthonous material and dissolved phase was employed. Phenomenology and model lead to the following conclusions: the sedimentation of the metals is dominated by allochthonous particles, the biogenic particularization is partially reversed by lake internal decomposition processes and the trace metals reaching the sediment are partially redissolved.

The influence of natural organic matter on the adsorption properties of mineral particles in lake water

The adsorption characteristics of sediment particles from a prealpine Swiss lake were compared with those of γ-aluminum oxide. Under lake water conditions, i.e. with particle concentration of 2–16 mg/1 and DOC concentrations of 1–4 mg/1 at pH=8, the adsorption of copper, zinc and orthophosphate is reduced significantly by the presence of natural organic matter (NOM). It is postulated that the binding sites of the natural mineral surfaces are occupied almost completely by NOM under natural conditions. A simple ligand exchange model can explain the observed phenomena.

The impact of household food consumption on resource and energy management

How can private households contribute to a more resource-efficient food production system? The importance of meat consumption has previously been highlighted. Various life-cycle analysis studies suggest which products are favourable from an ecological point of view. This study uses a material flux analysis to assess material and energy fluxes of the entire system of food production and consumption. It compares different steps in production and consumption as well as different product categories. The results reveal that agricultural production and private households account for most of the systems energy requirements. The outcomes of two possible initiatives taken by private households are analysed by scenario calculation. It compares optimisation of technical devices in private households with purchase decisions that favour organically produced food products. The results reveal an astonishing optimisation potential of cooling devices in private households. However, it also shows the importance of specific parameters, such as the energy-mix coefficient.