Search

Far-reaching changes in daily life present a pressing need to balance energy consumption with environmental impact. Previous research on household carbon emissions generally described its contributors in disposable income, consumption pattern, and household-related lifestyle, whereas they have not fully explored how carbon emissions relate to residents’ day-to-day lifestyles. Given that individual lifestyles within a household may be correlated, there is a need to disentangle the clustering effect of household members’ lifestyles and their association with household carbon emissions. This study used micro-macro multilevel modelling to examine the structure of individual lifestyles and their impact on household carbon emissions for 8618 multiple occupancy households of 19816 respondents in the UK Household Longitudinal Study dataset. The results showed that a factor capturing energy-saving lifestyle behaviours significantly reduced housing fuel use emissions and a second capturing transportation and consumption choices cut motor emissions. Interestingly, the contribution of energy-saving lifestyle in cutting down housing-fuel-using emissions becomes more pronounced when household income and household characteristics (e.g., household size, dwelling, house ownership, number of cars, urbanity, employment) were controlled for. Contrarily, the strength of green transportation and consumption lifestyle contributing to lower motor emissions was weakened after controlling for household characteristics. Findings indicated that day-to-day lifestyle not only reflects individual variability in sustainable living but also systematic household variation in carbon emissions. Knowledge of which living patterns are responsible for disproportionately high levels of carbon emissions can enhance effective targeted policy aimed at stimulating sustainable lifestyles and carbon reduction.

Biomasses are known for their variety of ash systems, often accompanied by limiting effects such as fouling, sintering, slagging, agglomeration and corrosion, which affect thermochemical conversion processes (combustion, gasification, pyrolysis etc.). To explore those limiting effects, five different feedstocks from agricultural, woody, and post-processed biomasses are investigated after ashing in a temperature range between 200 and 815 °C. The ash composition and their specific distribution inside the particles are studied using X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and scanning electron microscopy with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDX). Distinct differences are detected in the ashes from various biomasses, indicating that the ash systems can be homogeneous (mainly authigenic origin) or heterogeneous (with significant contributions of detrital/technogenic origin). Using X-ray diffraction (XRD), the formation and transformation of mineral phases are monitored in the ashes produced at various temperatures. The data are then compared to the results of thermochemical calculations. The experimental findings agree almost completely with those calculated using the FactSage™ software package. In connection with the identified mineral phases, the release behavior of the main alkali species, potassium, is monitored as a function of the ashing temperature. Based on these results indicating the ashes' mineral phase composition and their observed heterogeneity, the high-temperature behavior of the ash fusion temperatures (AFT) and ash fusion interval (AFI) between deformation and flow temperature can be ascertained. Finally, based on their ashing behavior, the biomasses’ potential use in thermochemical conversion processes at high temperatures is evaluated.