Stakeholder engagement in Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Health Impact Assessment (HIA) provides opportunities for inclusive environmental decision-making contributing to the attainment of agreement about the potential environmental and health impacts of a plan. A case evaluation of stakeholder engagement was carried out to assess its effect in terms of consensus-building. The case consisted in two health impact scoping workshops engaging 20 stakeholders: policy-makers, experts and residents. A Participatory Action Research approach was adopted. Methods included observation, semi-structured questionnaires and interviews. Analysis methods consisted of several coding rounds, in-depth reading and discussion of Atlas.ti output reports, as well as studying questionnaire results. Participants reported a broadening of perspectives on health in relation to the environment and attainment of shared perspectives. Still, meaningful differences remained, indicating that joint learning experiences, trust and mutual respect created a ‘sense of consensus’ rather than a joint view on the issues at stake. To avoid disappointment and conflict in later project development, explicit acknowledgment and acceptance of disagreements should be included as a ground rule in future stakeholder engagement processes.
Currently, many novel innovative materials and manufacturing methods are developed in order to help businesses for improving their performance, developing new products, and also implement more sustainability into their current processes. For this purpose, additive manufacturing (AM) technology has been very successful in the fabrication of complex shape products, that cannot be manufactured by conventional approaches, and also using novel high-performance materials with more sustainable aspects. The application of bioplastics and biopolymers is growing fast in the 3D printing industry. Since they are good alternatives to petrochemical products that have negative impacts on environments, therefore, many research studies have been exploring and developing new biopolymers and 3D printing techniques for the fabrication of fully biobased products. In particular, 3D printing of smart biopolymers has attracted much attention due to the specific functionalities of the fabricated products. They have a unique ability to recover their original shape from a significant plastic deformation when a particular stimulus, like temperature, is applied. Therefore, the application of smart biopolymers in the 3D printing process gives an additional dimension (time) to this technology, called four-dimensional (4D) printing, and it highlights the promise for further development of 4D printing in the design and fabrication of smart structures and products. This performance in combination with specific complex designs, such as sandwich structures, allows the production of for example impact-resistant, stress-absorber panels, lightweight products for sporting goods, automotive, or many other applications. In this study, an experimental approach will be applied to fabricate a suitable biopolymer with a shape memory behavior and also investigate the impact of design and operational parameters on the functionality of 4D printed sandwich structures, especially, stress absorption rate and shape recovery behavior.
The textile and clothing sector belongs to the world’s biggest economic activities. Producing textiles is highly energy-, water- and chemical-intensive and consequently the textile industry has a strong impact on environment and is regarded as the second greatest polluter of clean water. The European textile industry has taken significant steps taken in developing sustainable manufacturing processes and materials for example in water treatment and the development of biobased and recycled fibres. However, the large amount of harmful and toxic chemicals necessary, especially the synthetic colourants, i.e. the pigments and dyes used to colour the textile fibres and fabrics remains a serious concern. The limited range of alternative natural colourants that is available often fail the desired intensity and light stability and also are not provided at the affordable cost . The industrial partners and the branch organisations Modint and Contactgroep Textiel are actively searching for sustainable alternatives and have approached Avans to assist in the development of the colourants which led to the project Beauti-Fully Biobased Fibres project proposal. The objective of the Beauti-Fully Biobased Fibres project is to develop sustainable, renewable colourants with improved light fastness and colour intensity for colouration of (biobased) man-made textile fibres Avans University of Applied Science, Zuyd University of Applied Sciences, Wageningen University & Research, Maastricht University and representatives from the textile industry will actively collaborate in the project. Specific approaches have been identified which build on knowledge developed by the knowledge partners in earlier projects. These will now be used for designing sustainable, renewable colourants with the improved quality aspects of light fastness and intensity as required in the textile industry. The selected approaches include refining natural extracts, encapsulation and novel chemical modification of nano-particle surfaces with chromophores.
Dit project richt zich op de ontwikkeling van de biotechnologische en chemische procesvoering om op basis van mycelium een alternatief voor leer te produceren. In vergelijking met leer is het voordeel van mycelium dat geen runderen nodig zijn, de productie kan plaatsvinden onder industriële condities en met gebruik van reststromen, de CO2 uitstoot alsook hoeveelheid afval verlaagd wordt, en het gebruik van toxische stoffen zoals chroom wordt vervangen door biobased alternatieven. In het project zullen de procescondities worden bepaald die leiden tot de vorming van optimaal mycelium. Daartoe zullen twee verschillende schimmels worden gekweekt in bioreactoren bij de Hogeschool Arnhem Nijmegen (HAN), waarbij specifiek de effecten van de procescondities (temperatuur, pH, shear, beluchting) en de samenstelling van het kweekmedium op groei van het mycelium en materiaal eigenschappen zullen worden onderzocht. De meest optimale condities zullen vervolgens worden opgeschaald. Op het op deze wijze verkregen materiaal zal Mylium BV een aantal nabehandelingsstappen uitvoeren om de sterkte, elasticiteit, en duurzaamheid van het product te vergroten. Daartoe worden biobased plasticizers, cross-linkers en/of flexibility agents gebruikt. Het resulterende eindproduct zal middels specifiek fysieke testen vergeleken worden met leer alsook worden voorgelegd aan mogelijke klanten. Indien beide resultaten positief zijn kan het betreffende proces na het project verder worden opgeschaald voor toepassing naar de markt.
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