Dimitrios Xevgenos

Delft University of Technology | TU · Faculty of Applied Sciences (AS)

Water and energy are two strategic drivers of sustainable development, intimately interlaced and vital for a secure future of humanity. Given that water resources are limited, whereas global population and energy demand are exponentially growing, the competitive balance between these resources, referred to as the water-energy nexus, is receiving re...

This work explores resource recovery coupled to seawater desalination in small islands. As small islands depend on seawater desalination for water access, they make an excellent ground for exploring the trade-offs associated to resource recovery, like potential economic gains, energy use, and environmental impacts. Here, we investigated these tensi...

The diversity and distribution of polychaetes in the coastal area and the EEZ of the Republic of Cyprus is presented based on both the literature records and new data acquired in a wide range of environmental monitoring programmes and research projects. A total of 585 polychaete species belonging to 49 families were reported in Cyprus waters; among...

The sustainable supply of water is crucial, especially on islands where water is scarce. Our study applied the social life cycle assessment (S-LCA), under the organizational approach, to assess industrial water production on the island of Lampedusa, Italy. A novel plant for industrial water production considering a circular concept was compared wit...

Nowadays, small remote islands rely heavily on desalination technologies to overcome freshwater scarcity. Unfortunately, these technologies are accompanied by the production of brines which can affect the receiving water bodies i.e., the aquatic ecosystem. Yet, it is extremely appealing how such brines constitute an abundant source of valuable raw...

Glycerol is abundantly present in wastewater from industries such as biodiesel production facilities. Glycerol is also a potential carbon source for microbes that are involved in wastewater nutrient removal processes. The conversion of glycerol in biological phosphorus removal of aerobic granular sludge processes has not been explored to date. The...

The recovery of resources, including water reuse, has been presented as a solution to overcome scarcity, and improve the economic and environmental performance of water provision and treatment. However, its implementation faces non-technical challenges, including the need to collaborate with new stakeholders and face societal acceptance issues. Loo...

Energy transition in islands constitutes a major challenge. Apart from a necessity, it can also be a great opportunity for sustainable social and economic development. Toward this direction, a new, promising movement has emerged recently in Greek islands. Straight from the roots of the insular population, development of energy communities comes as...

European policy encourages the adoption of sustainable systems that promote the efficient use and recovery of minerals and chemicals. In this respect, desalination brines do contain a dramatic amount of valuable minerals and can be valorized through appropriate treatments rather than releasing them into the environment. This paper proposes an innov...

The aim of this study is to explore and develop a Circular Business Model for the treatment of brine wastewater generated by the textile sector. In this way, this report can showcase the benefits of applying circular economy techniques not only in terms of environmental value but also in economic and social.

The European Union's Environmental Technology Verification (ETV) program aims to foster innovative environmental technologies to reach the market and reassure potential users. This paper presents an investigation of using ETV for three technologies, being developed within the EU Zero Brine research and innovation project. The technologies were desi...

Although the energy transition results in decreased use of coal for power production, hard coal extraction will continue due to its importance in steel production and coal mine wastewater will continue generating after mines closure. The coal mining sector produces wastewater which results in environmental burdens and often contains valuable materi...

The Port of Rotterdam is a heavily man-modified estuarine system, Europe's major seaport and home to a large number of chemical and petrochemical plants, many of which are supplied with distilled water from two demineralized water plants in Botlek and Maasvlakte. In this study, we assessed the ecological conditions near the brine outfalls and at a...

Eighty percent of wastewater is left untreated or not reused, exacerbating the water quality challenge, especially in vulnerable communities. This Voices asks: how can we improve wastewater management and convert wastewater into a resource?

Cyprus relies on seawater desalination for a large part of its drinking water supply, with reverse osmosis providing more than 95% of the total desalination capacity in the country. Nevertheless, the environmental impacts of desalination for the Cypriot environment remain poorly understood. Using a combination of mining existing governmental and co...

Brine releases and salt consumption from process industries in Europe In Europe, appoximately 62% of salt consumption is attributed to chemical production (chlorine and caustic soda, sodium carbonate, sodium chlorate etc), followed by food processing (7.6%), de-icing (6.5%), water softening (3.7%) and many other uses. The salt consumed by the indus...

Industrial saline impaired effluents (i.e. brines) represent an environmental challenge, since they are harmful for aquatic ecosystems, but also an economic opportunity, since they contain valuable materials that can be recovered and put back on the market. The ZERO BRINE project aims to "close the brine loop”. To this end, a large-scale demonstrat...

The purpose of this study was to investigate the climate change impacts, vulnerability and adaptive capacity of the electrical energy sector in Cyprus. Spatial vulnerability of the island was assessed using the degree-day indicator to investigate heating and cooling demands in the near future using daily temperature projections from regional climat...

Waste management is increasingly considered one of the most critical environmental challenges on a worldwide basis. Municipal solid waste and packaging waste in specific is an important and growing waste stream. It has been widely recognized that recycling practices and in specific separation at source schemes should be adopted in order to achieve...

Waste management in Greece relies heavily on unsustainable waste practices (mainly landfills and in certain cases uncontrolled dumping of untreated waste). Even though major improvements have been achieved in the recycling of municipal solid waste during recent years, there are some barriers that hinder the achievement of high recycling rates. Sour...

Desalination is a water technology that is gaining increasing importance for addressing water needs, but it is costly and energy intensive and further strains the environment with brine disposal and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In order to desalt seawater, either through membrane or thermal processes, a large amount of energy is required. Desali...

In this paper, the design of a novel multi-effect distillation system is described for the concentration of the brine effluent produced from desalination plants. The evaporation process was simulated through the use of a software tool that was developed for the brine treatment process. The results and the simulator tool are also discussed in the pa...

Desalination comprises a non-conventional water resource practice that is currently gaining importance internationally for filling the gap in the water balance. Even though it is a well proven technique, it is associated with certain economic considerations (high energy consumption) and environmental concerns regarding brine management: around 2 L...