66181 - Environmental Technologies and Certification M

Academic Year 2021/2022

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course the student attains the knowledge of application aspects of environmental chemistry, related to waste recovery technologies, integrated environmental monitoring, the tools for the impact assessment associated to industrial processes, as Life Cycle Assessment and Risk Analysis. Furthermore, the student acquires the basic knowledge concerning the environmental certification for enterprises, in the framework of the reference law, in Italy and in Europe.

Course contents

Prerequisites:

Knowledge of the main notions of Environmental chemistry: major classes of pollutants; structure and physico-chemical features of the atmosphere; water properties; geosphere and soil system; main sources and types of anthropic environmental contamination.

Contents:

Introduction to the environmental technologies concerning contaminated sites remediation, gaseous emission control, civil and industrial wastewater treatments, solid waste management.
Introduction to European Union policy concerning environmental management of enterprises. Definition of Environmental Management System and environmental policy. Procedures and types of environmental certification: ISO 14000 and EMAS, analogies and differences. The process of certification. Ecological labelling and Green Public Procurement. Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC); Best Available Techniques (BAT). Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA). Description of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach. Steps of LCA methodology. Case studies of LCA application to chemical processes and products and to environmental technologies.

Readings/Bibliography

G. L. Baldo, M. Marino, S. Rossi, "Analisi del Ciclo di Vita LCA. Gli strumenti per la progettazione sostenibile di materiale, prodotti e processi", 2008, Edizioni Ambiente
M. Z. Hauschild, R. K. Rosenbaum, S. Irving Olsen (Eds.), "Life Cycle Assessment. Theory and Practice", Springer, 2018.

Teaching methods

The course is taught with theoretical lectures and deepening on application case studies.
Furthermore, seminars by experts on specific fields are held and a visit to an industrial plant is usually organised.

Assessment methods

The final tests consists in an oral exam, concerning both the contents of environmental certification and assessment, and those related to environmental technologies.

The interview starts with the discussion of a brief relation presented by the student on a chosen subject, further ranging over similar issues considered during the lectures. In particular, the ability of performing a critical analysis of a research based on bibliographic sources found by the students will be verified, assessing the degree of investigation of the course contents.

Furthermore, the exam is aimed at verifying that the students have learnt how to apply their chemical education to the problems of reducing environmental contamination; thus, they must be able to use a proper technical-scientific language, succeeding in employing the concepts of basic chemical courses, and in particular of environmental chemistry.

Before the end of the course, frequently asked questions are usually recalled, discussing together on the possible answers.

In order to sit for the examination, it is necessary to enter one's name in the list through AlmaEsami. Those who are not able to register themselves in time, must tell it to the teacher, who however have the faculty of admitting them to the exam.

Teaching tools

The course will be taught with the aid of computer support for the projection of text and images. The slides will be left available to the students, on the webpage https://virtuale.unibo.it/

ICT tools will be used for bibliographic researches and to show examples of calculation software.

Office hours

See the website of Daniele Cespi

See the website of Ivano Vassura