Enrique Roca Bordello

Verified

Enrique verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

Learn more

Verified

Enrique verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

Learn more

• Professor
• Professor (Full) at University of Santiago de Compostela

El granulado de caucho, que procede del triturado de neumáticos fuera de uso, se emplea en superficies de uso diario como campos de fútbol sintéticos o parques infantiles. El problema medioambiental del empleo del granulado reside en que liberan microplásticos en él, siendo la principal fuente no intencionada. Además, estos gránulos contienen gran...

The Anaerobic Digestion Model No1 (ADM1) is accepted widely as a common platform for anaerobic process modelling and simulation. However, this model has an excessive complexity and a large number of parameters and states. This hinders its calibration and its use in control applications, and may render it inadequate for development of state observer...

The design stage represents one of the most critic steps for product development. Here, a great number of considerations have to be borne in mind, e.g., technical, functional, aesthetic or economic criteria. More recently, the increasing concerns on environmental aspects have added complexity to the process, known as ecodesign. In this respect, a f...

This paper presents the results of the environmental evaluation of the waste treatment processes occurring at LIPOR (the Inter-municipal Waste Management System of Greater Porto - Portugal) in the period 2007-2011. To this aim two methodologies are applied, namely the Energy and Material Flow Analysis (EMFA) and the Ecological Footprint (EF). The b...

This work presents the results from the environmental sustainability assessment of a wood-based particleboard manufacturing process located in Spain, using the Ecological Footprint methodology for the analysis. The consumption of material resources revealed as the major contributor to the Ecological Footprint due to the high amounts of roundwood us...

The Anaerobic Digestion Model No. 1 (ADM1) is a complex model which is widely accepted as a common platform for anaerobic process modeling and simulation. However, it has a large number of parameters and states that hinder its calibration and use in control applications. A principal component analysis (PCA) technique was extended and applied to sim...

The selection of a municipal solid waste (MSW) treatment alternative is a complex task in which a widespread set of criteria must be taken into account. Additionally to economic or social aspects, the decision process should consider the environmental perspective. With the purpose of quantifying the environmental burdens, a wide variety of environm...

This paper reviews the advantages of combining complementary environmental evaluation tools - ecological footprint, life cycle assessment and environmental risk assessment - that were identified as encompassing the most significant features that should be considered in corporate-related appraisals. Together, these tools evaluate key aspects of envi...

In many cases, the solution for the design and control of environmental systems requires processing imprecise, uncertain, qualitative and vague data. Two cases of this type of processes are the supervision and control of wastewater treatment plants, specifically for anaerobic treatment processes, and the ecodesign of processes and products, which r...

Two environmental evaluation methodologies, namely energy and materials flow analysis (EMFA) and ecological footprint (EF), were combined to assess a tailoring factory that produced jackets in the period 2002-2005. During the EMFA, aided by the software Umberto(®) 5.5, cutting was identified as the most energy consuming stage and gas-oil as an impo...

In this study, the presence of hazardous organic chemicals in surfaces containing recycled rubber tires is investigated. Direct material analyses using solvent extraction, as well as SPME analysis of the vapour phase above the sample, were carried out. Twenty-one rubber mulch samples were collected from nine different playgrounds. In addition, seve...

Composting of organic wastes is a biodegradation process involving the mineralization and partial humification of the organic matter, leading to a stabilized final product, generally free of phytotoxic products and pathogens and with some good humic substances. The three major types of composting technologies are open windrow, static windrow and re...

The ecological footprint (EF) has reached worldwide popularity in the last decade as an interesting environmental indicator, and its applications have been extended to different fields. However, shortcomings of the methodology behind the EF calculations have been reported and the need for further improvements has been remarked, especially when this...

Environmental risk assessment (ERA) is a useful methodology to estimate the possible adverse effects to human health due to contaminants exposure. In the case of agricultural scenarios, this method requires knowing the concentrations of contaminants in soil solution and vegetation, among other parameters. This study aimed to develop multicorrelatio...

The ecodesign of a product implies that different potential environmental problems of diverse nature must be considered, apart from the general design criteria (i.e., technical, functional, ergonomic, aesthetic or economical). In this sense, an ecodesign tool integrating the criteria provided by three environmental evaluation methodologies, namely...

This paper reviews a series of environmental indicators developed in the last years that were found suitable to be applied at corporate level for the evaluation of production processes and products. The indicators reviewed in this paper were classified into four main groups: 1) Indicators of Energy and Material Flows; 2) Indicators with a Territori...

The ecodesign of a product implies that different potential environmental impacts of diverse nature must be taken into account considering its whole life cycle, apart from the general design criteria (i.e. technical, functional, ergonomic, aesthetic or economic). In this sense, a sustainability assessment methodology, ecological footprint (EF), and...

In this work, an environmental risk assessment of reusing organic waste of differing origins and raw materials as agricultural fertilizers was carried out. An inventory of the heavy metal content in different organic wastes (i.e., compost, sludge, or manure) from more than 80 studies at different locations worldwide is presented. The risk analysis...

In this work, a new multi-objective control strategy based on the concentration of volatile fatty acids (VFAs) in the effluent and the methane flow rate (Qch4) has been proposed for an upflow sludge bed-filter (USBF) reactor, which is used in the anaerobic treatment of winery wastewater. The approach presented here is novel due to the following rea...

A mathematical model describing the kinetics of the sequential production of lactic acid and xylitol from detoxified-concentrated vine trimming hemicellulosic hydrolysates by Lactobacillus rhamnosus and Debaryomyces hansenii, respectively, was developed from the basic principles of mass balance in two stages considering as main reactions: (1) gluco...

Soil quality is defined as the capacity to sustain biological productivity within the ecosystem and land-use boundaries, to maintain environmental quality and to promote plant and animal health. The evaluation of soil quality has been an important environmental concern during the last decades due to the increment of contamination from different ant...

Currently, specific management guidelines must be implemented for guaranteeing the safe reuse of organic waste in agriculture. With that aim, this work was focused on the development of a decision support tool for a safe and sustainable management of cattle manure as fertiliser in pastureland, to control and limit metal accumulation in soil and to...

The ecological footprint (EF) is a widely used indicator to assess the sustainability of people, regions or business activities. Although this metric has grown in interest and popularity over the years, it has also been the subject of criticism and controversy. The advantages of an aggregated indicator are often overshadowed by the shortcomings of...

In this work, a previously developed variable gain controller (VGC) was applied for automatic control of re-startup and an organic overload in an anaerobic wastewater treatment (AWT) plant treating winery wastewater. The experiments for testing the automatic re-startup, and later organic overload, were conducted at 37 ± 2 °C in a hybrid upflow slud...

In the present work, a set of generic parameters was proposed for a pharmacokinetic model, with the objective of predicting Cd concentration in the tissues of diverse fish species under different environmental conditions. Cd concentrations in a number of tissues of Oncorhynchus mykiss and Cyprinus carpio were estimated by a structurally identifiabl...

Excess sludge treatment and disposal accounts for between 50 and 60% of the operating costs of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). Nowadays the main alternative methods for sludge disposal in the EU are land application (agriculture and silviculture) (49%), landfill (40%) and incineration (11%). All these methods represent several disadvantages wi...

This paper describes a validation procedure applied for an on-line titrimetric analyzer (AnaSense ® -Anaerobic Control Analyzer) prototype designed to detect of volatile fatty acids (VFA) and alkalinity (bicarbonate). The AnaSense ® analyzer was recently developed under the framework of the TELEMAC European Project. A pi-lot-scale evaluation of the...

This work aims to systematize the study of indicators for two types of wastewaters: carbohydrate-based and protein-based synthetic wastewaters. Characterization of steady states and dynamic response analysis against disturbances were carried out using both a factorial discriminant analysis (FDA) and a phenomenological analysis, respectively. This r...

Soil is essentially a non-renewable resource and a very dynamic system that performs many functions and delivers services vital to human activities and ecosystems survival (European Commission, 2006). Soils are critical environments where solids, air and water interact. Consequently, they are subjected to a number of pollutants released in differen...

BACKGROUND: Modelling of anaerobic bioprocesses requires adequate conciliation between model accuracy and complexity. Anaerobic digestion is a highly complex biocatalysed process in which organic (waste) materials are converted into biogas. Complex mathematical models of the process can be difficult to manage, while too simplistic models may be ins...

Arable layer of pastureland in Galicia (NW Spain) was monitored for total content of heavy metals, and analysed by multivariate statistical techniques, in order to investigate the different origin that metals may have in pasture soils. Principal component analysis (PCA), cluster analysis (CA) and correlation matrix (CM) were applied to 65 samples i...

In this work, a model for metal bioaccumulation in fish is presented. The model captures the basic principles driving the dynamics of metal bioaccumulation in fish, taking into account different exposure routes and the distribution among representative organs. The model is demonstrated to be robust and structurally identifiable. The complete set of...

In this work, several alternatives related to the application of ozone in different streams of a seafood industry WWTP were evaluated to minimize the production of waste sludge. The WWTP was composed of two coagulation-flocculation units and a biological unit and generated around of 6550 kg/d of sludge. Ozone was applied to sludge coming from flota...

The plasmid instability of genetically modified microorganisms during prolonged bioreactor operations is one of the major problems to be overcome in the production of recombinant proteins. The use of flow cytometry to monitor a fermentation process with recombinant cells in a CSTR is reported here. This technique has been applied to determine the f...

The Ecological Footprint (EF) is a recent concept which has widely been used as an indicator of environmental sustainability applied to individual lifestyles, regions, nations or even the world. Recently, its application to enterprises has been proposed. In the present study, a textile tailoring plant has been analysed. The overall purpose of this...

The so-called IPPC Directive concerning integrated pollution prevention and control came into force 10years ago affecting those industrial installations enumerated in its annex I, mainly characterized for being highly polluting sources. One of the innovations of this regulation is that the installations must have an integrated environmental permit...

In this work, steady-state mass balance based models were applied to two UASB reactors and three UAF for a better understanding of the role of pulsation on the efficacy improvement. Models were defined taking into account the hydraulic behavior of each digester and the limiting mechanism of the overall process kinetics (mass transfer or biochemical...

Frame and daughters directives for evaluating the ambient air quality have been adopted by the EU as a part of the new strategies for pollution prevention and control and environmental management. Therefore, the prediction of ozone concentration and the identification of episodes by modeling are fundamental for protecting and preventing the populat...

In this work, granules developed from UASB reactors that treat different types of wastewaters (ethanol, carbohydrates and protein-based synthetic wastewaters) were studied. Granule parameters (size distribution; density; settlement characteristics; elemental composition; acidogenic and methanogenic activities) were analyzed along with micro-organis...

The combination of equalisation tanks and anaerobic digesters represents a typical design scenario within the treatment of industrial wastewaters. In this context, if the hydraulic capacity of the equalisation tanks is effectively handled, significant improvements in the performance of anaerobic digesters can be achieved in terms of process stabili...

In this work, a fuzzy logic-based system for diagnosis and control of an anaerobic wastewater treatment plant was developed. Three variables (methane production, hydrogen concentration in the gas phase, and intermediate alkalinity/total alkalinity ratio) were selected, according to previous works, as the more adequate for organic overload identific...

The incremental risk of workers in a metal-degreasing facility exposed to volatile organic compounds (VOCs) present in the water supply during showering was estimated. A probabilistic and worst-case approach using specific-site concentration data and a generalized multipathway exposure model was applied. Estimates of hazard index and lifetime cance...

The heavy ceramic industry (building materials and refractory products manufacture) is an important source of pollutants to the environment. For this reason these industrial sub-sectors are included in prevention and control pollution policies, specifically those of the European Union. The IPPC Directive pays particular attention to the mineral ind...

In this work, the effect of the pulsing flow on the start-up efficiency and hydraulics of upflow anaerobic filters (UAF) has been assessed. With this aim, a reactor operated in pulsing form (P) was compared with a conventional nonpulsed UAF reactor (NP). Although the operation of the two reactors was similar, the pulsed UAF attained a higher effici...

A 1.1 m3 hybrid USBF fully instrumented pilot plant has been used for the treatment of diluted wine for four years. In this work, the performance of the wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) during start up and operation (normal operation and overload experiments) is shown. A complete description of the treatment process behaviour (gas and liquid phase...

During a 16 months period, the characteristics of the wastewaters generated in a Rias Baixas winery (Spain) producing white wine were determined: The characterization study showed that white wine wastewater had an average CODt and TSS values of 7.3 and 5.2 kg/m3, respectively being the ratio wastewater/wine produced of about 1.6-2.0 L/L and the rat...

Anaerobic wastewater treatment has become a widely used method for wastewater depuration, and has been applied in a wide range of situations, from urban wastewater to highly toxic industrial wastewater. Particularly it has been successfully applied to the treatment of the beverage industries effluents. To avoid the destabilization of the system a m...

This chapter describes the main parameters and the different techniques used to characterize an anaerobic bioreactor and how to apply the obtained information to learn how to operate it. In this kind of biological systems, the large number of processes, operating parameters and removed compounds involved makes necessary to combine knowledge from bo...

The use of genetically modified microorganisms to overproduce a target protein is one of the main advances in biotechnology research during the last quarter of the twenty century. However, before using these microorganisms in industrial applications some frequent problems must be overcome. The problems include the maintenance of genetic stability,...

Specific-site data of metal concentration in cattle manure from NW Spain and a multicompartment fate and exposure model were used to evaluate metal fate and the main routes of exposure after a 100 year period of application of cattle manure as fertiliser in pastureland. Risk assessment was performed as a probabilistic analysis, and using a conserva...

The aim of this work was to design a wastewater treatment plant for the effluents produced by a laboratory of dairy products assays "Aula de Productos Lácteos" of the University of Santiago de Compostela. The plant would comprise with the purpose of reusing the treated wastewater for irrigating green recreational zones. For the design of the plant,...

In this work, the effect of the application of a pulse system to anoxic upflow sludge bed (USB) denitrifying reactors for enhancing sludge granulation was studied. In all, three 0.8 L reactors (two operated with flow pulsation, P1 with effluent recycling and P2 without recycling, and one without pulsation and effluent recycling, no pulsation (NP))...

An easy-to-implement controller based on gas phase measurements for anaerobic digestion processes was developed. The controller is based on the indirect control of COD in the effluent by means of controlling the hydrogen concentration in the biogas. The fast response of hydrogen under destabilizations, such as those caused by overloads, guarantees...

There are a few works related to on line steady state detection algorithms and less with parameter estimation. This work used Principal Component Analysis (PCA) for reduction of the dimension of the data space and producing independent variables, allowing the application of the multivariate Cao and Rhinehart algorithm in steady state detection. Onc...

Guía de aplicación nas instalacións destinadas ao tratamento de superficies metálicas, 2005

O obxectivo desta Guía é o de facilitar un instrumento que sexa de utilidade tanto para o titular das instalacións de fabricación de produtos cerámicos afectadas pola lei 16/2002 coma para os equipos técnicos que se encargan de preparar a documentación e para o público en xeral, ademais de integrar a información que se require na tramitación para q...

The TELEMAC project brings new methodologies from the Information and Science Technologies field to the world of water treatment. TELEMAC offers an advanced remote management system which adapts to most of the anaerobic wastewater treatment plants that do not benefit from a local expert in wastewater treatment. The TELEMAC system takes advantage of...

Two bioreactor continuous cultures, at anaerobic and aerobic conditions, were carried out using a recombinant Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain that over-expresses the homologous gene EXG1. This recombinant system was used to study the effect of dissolved oxygen concentration on plasmid stability and gene over-expression. Bioreactor cultures were ope...

Anaerobic wastewater treatment is a very complex system, which involves a great number of process (bioprocess as well as physicochemical process) running in parallel and series. This means that multivariable analysis is needed for state identification of such a process. The objective of this work is to use statistical multivariable tools to detect...

A fuzzy-logic-based diagnosis system for the determination of acidification states on an anaerobic wastewater treatment plant was developed. The diagnosis system uses experts’ knowledge to determine the acidification state of the process. The information of several on-line measured variables, which are classified under linguistic labels, and the ex...

The objective of this work is to improve the characteristics of granular sludge by modification of the hydraulics of the bed through flow pulsation. Three UASB reactors, two operated with pulsing flow (P1 and P2) and a third without pulsation (NP), were started-up. Both recycling and feeding flow were pulsed in the reactor P1, while in reactor P2,...

Este traballo permite establecer un diagnóstico inicial do sector enerxético, así como subministrar unhas pautas de comportamento ambiental. Nun futuro inmediato haberá que analiza-la viabilidade técnica e económica das alternativas máis idóneas para cada caso concreto, considerando as mellores técnicas dispoñibles, para establecer entón os cambios...

In this paper, an expert system (ES) developed for the monitoring and diagnosis of anaerobic wastewater treatment plants (AWT), is presented. The system was evaluated in a hybrid pilot plant of 1.1 m3 located in an industrial environment for the treatment of wastewaters from a fibreboard production factory. The reactor is a hybrid USBF, combining a...

A diagnosis system for anaerobic wastewater treatment processes is presented. The system is able to recognise the state and trend of the operation and suggest the appropriate control action. The on-line variables measured were gas flow rate and composition (methane and carbon monoxide), feed and recycling flow rates, temperature and pH, while the m...

The aim of this work is to study the influence of pulsation on the start-up of lab-scale UASB reactors. Pulsation was produced by an Elastic Membrane Pulsator (EMP). The application of this device in previous works improved the performance of continuous fixed-bed fermentors and reduced the formation of preferential pathways, the retention of gas me...

A diagnosis system for anaerobic wastewater treatment processes is presented. The system is able to recognise the state and trend of the operation and suggest the appropriate control action. The on-line variables measured were gas flow rate and composition (methane and carbon monoxide), feed and recycling flow rates, temperature and pH, while the m...

This paper is focused on the development of a fuzzy expert system capable to diagnose the state of a pilot-scale wastewater treatment plant, its trend and also to be able to decide the best commands to be sent to the final control elements to recover the stable operation in case of disturbances. The development of the fuzzy expert system was carrie...

A control system to automate the start-up of anaerobic wastewater treatment reactors is presented. The system controls the feedflow rate, using the biogas production or the biogas flow rate as the only on-line variable. Furthermore, other off-line parameters, such as methane content in the biogas and COD of influent are also necessary to calculate...

A fuzzy-based expert system (ES) for the diagnosis and supervision for anaerobic digesters is presented. The system was developed in a Microsoft Windows support using fuzzy logic inference together with a rule base for the implementation of expert knowledge. The ES runs on-line through three main modules, which determine the state and trend of the...

Immobilisation of cells in a calcium alginate gel improved plasmid stability (up to 50%) and enzymatic expression (up to 57%) of a recombinant Saccharomyces cerevisiaeover-expressing the homologous gene EXG1. The rate of segregational loss in the free cells was 14-fold higher than that of the immobilised cells. Recombinant protein synthesis require...

A fuzzy logic based diagnosis system for the supervision of the operation of a wastewater treatment plant was developed. The diagnosis system uses the experts’ knowledge to determine the state of the process, using several measured variables, by means of a base of rules. The system allows to know the acidification state in the reactor by using fuzz...

The operation of an industrial pilot scale treating wastewater from a fibreboard-processing factory was monitored by an advanced system. The plant, an anaerobic hybrid UASB-UAF bioreactor (Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket-Upflow Anaerobic Filter), was equipped with the following measurement devices: biogas flow-meter, feed and recycling flow-meters,...

The operation of an industrial pilot scale treating wastewater from a fibreboard-processing factory was monitored by an advanced system. The plant, an anaerobic hybrid UASB-UAF bioreactor (Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket-Upflow Anaerobic Filter), was equipped with the following measurement devices: biogas flow-meter, feed and recycling flow-meters,...

Manganese peroxidase, MnP, is one of the major ligninolytic enzymes produced by a number of white-rot fungi. The ability of this enzyme to degrade lignin by the fungus Bjerkanderasp BOS55 has opened its application to related bioprocesses such as recalcitrant-compound degradation and effluent decolorization. The medium reported to induce MnP produc...

In this work, several batch fermentations by free and immobilized genetically modified S.cerevisiae pRN5 with amplified exo-β-glucanase (EXG) activity and a defective EXG1 gene strain S.cerevisiae MAX18-9B were carried out. The aim was to study the plasmid stability and the enzymatic expression in selective and non selective media. Batch experiment...

Continuous xylitol production with two different immobilized recombinant Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains (H475 and S641), expressing low and high xylose reductase (XR) activities, was investigated in a lab-scale packed-bed bioreactor. The effect of hydraulic residence time (HRT; 1.3-11.3 h), substrate/cosubstrate ratio (0.5 and 1), recycling ratio...

The use of a new pulsing device, Elastic Membrane Pulsator (EMP),1 coupled to a packed-bed bioreactor has proved useful for increasing the efficiency of several lab-scale fermentation processes.2,3 With the aim of studying the applicability of this system at a larger scale, a semipilot pulsing packed-bed bioreactor (2.1 l, ) equipped with several s...

In this work, an expert system was developed and applied for on-line control and supervision of ethanolic fermentation by immobilized Saccharomyces cerevisiae in a fixed-bed pulsed bioreactor of 1.2 l of working volume. A number of experiments with different substrate concentrations (75, 100, 150 and 200 g/l) and hydraulic residence times (2.4, 1.2...

The most suitable conditions for the hardening of alginate bioparticles by Al3+ obtained were: Al3+, 0.3 M; time of treatment 5 min and yeast concentration in the gel, 3 g dry weight/L. The hardened biocatalyst was used to carry out an ethanolic fermentation process in a semi-pilot packed-bed reactor and no breakage of the bioparticles was observed...

The hydraulic model of a gas lift bioreactor, during a continuous alcoholic fermentation by using a strongly flocculating yeast, is analysed. Sucrose at two different concentrations (50 and 100 g/l) was used as substrate and the dilution rate for all the experiments was 1 h−1. The biomass concentrations were between 85 and 110 g dry weight/1. A sti...

The hydraulic model of a gas lift bioreactor, during a continuous alcoholic fermentation by using a strongly flocculating yeast, is analysed. Sucrose at two different concentrations (50 and 100 g/l) was used as substrate and the dilution rate for all the experiments was 1 h–1. The biomass concentrations were between 85 and 110 g dry weight/1. A sti...

A new simple electronic device for liquid flowrate measurement in laboratory or semipilot scale fermenters is presented. The flow meter is also applicable to pulsing or oscillating flow rates. This system allows either a direct measurement of the flow or implementation on a data acquisition system, if available.

When the immobilized cells are employed in packed-bed bioreactors several problems appear. To overcome these drawbacks, a new bioreactor based on the use of pulsed systems was developed [1]. In this work, we study the glucose fermentation by immobilized Saccharomyces cerevisiae in a packed-bed bioreactor. A comparative study was then carried out fo...

This paper describes a new pulsing device which permits the insertion in pulsing form of a liquid phase fed into an equipment where a microbial or enzymatic transformation occurs. It also analyzes the modifications of the flow model caused by the pulsation generated by means of three kinds of pulsators: A hydropneumatic pulsator, a selfpropelled pu...

RESUMEN Para conseguir una operación estable en reactores anaerobios se requiere monitorizar adecuadamente el proceso para identificar y diagnosticar, en forma precoz, episodios de sobrecarga y perturbaciones. En este trabajo se realiza un análisis de la respuesta de una serie de variables a una perturbación, para determinar su adecuación a la iden...