Abstract: This talk will present advances in research on planning, design and control strategies of hybrid energy systems and their applications on interconnected infrastructures. The talk will explain design approaches, strategies, and planning of smart energy grids. Nuclear-renewable hybrid energy systems will be discussed with different coupling strategies. Interconnected infrastructures are modeled and linked with energy, water, transportation, waste, food, health, and social systems. Fast charging station design is illustrated using hybrid energy systems with diverse energy storage and integrated within transportation electrification based on resiliency demand and control strategies. Demonstration of resilient micro energy grid is discussed and analyzed in view of different application scenarios, such as energy-water systems, modeling, and simulation of fast charging stations.

Biography: Dr. Gabbar is a full Professor in the Department of Energy and Nuclear Engineering, the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, at Ontario Tech University (UOIT), where he has established the Energy Safety and Control Lab (ESCL), Smart Energy Systems Lab, and Advanced Plasma Engineering Lab. He is the recipient of the Senior Research Excellence Aware for 2016, UOIT. He is recognized among the top 2% of worldwide scientists with high citation in the area of energy. He is a Distinguished Lecturer – IEEE NPSS on Nuclear-Renewable Hybrid Energy Systems and Plasma-based Waste-to-Energy. He is leading national and international research in the areas of smart energy grids, energy safety and control systems, and waste to energy using advanced plasma technologies. Dr. Gabbar obtained his B.Sc. degree in 1988 with first class of honor from the Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University (Egypt). In 2001, he obtained his Ph.D. degree from Okayama University (Japan). From 2001 till 2004, he joined Tokyo Institute of Technology (Japan), as a research associate. From 2004 till 2008, he joined Okayama University (Japan) as an Associate Professor, in the Division of Industrial Innovation Sciences. From 2007 till 2008, he was a Visiting Professor at the University of Toronto. He also worked as process control, safety, and automation specialist in energy and oil & gas industries. Dr. Gabbar has more than 230 publications, including patents, books / chapters, journal and conference papers.

Abstract: There has been a growing increasing interest in utilizing phase change materials (PCMs) for energy saving in buildings. The latent heat fusion of PCM at suitable temperatures, allowing a high energy storage and release with a narrow temperature range, helps shift peak loading period, regulate indoor temperature, and save energy. Since the thermal performance of PCM depends on the utilization level of latent heat, besides to the thermophysical properties, it should be selected properly considering climatic conditions, position in the wall, etc. In this talk, PCM applications in buildings will be addressed, and various indices for evaluating the thermal performance of PCMs will be focused on. The indices will be discussed in detail in order to provide more insight into contribution level of latent heat to energy saving effect in buildings. Furthermore, the thermal performance of PCMs will be compared with conventional methods.

Biography: Müslüm Arıcı is a Professor in Thermodynamics and Heat Technique Division of Mechanical Engineering Department of Kocaeli University, Turkey. He completed Diploma Course at von Karman Institute, Belgium in 2007 and received PhD degree from Kocaeli University, Turkey in 2010. He is co-author of 250+ papers in refereed SCI-indexed journal papers. He has been serving as associate editor in Case Studies in Thermal Engineering (IF=6.8); Energy, Ecology, and Environment (IF=4.4), Journal of the Faculty of Engineering and Architecture of Gazi University (IF=1.1), and Journal of Thermal Engineering (E-SCI). Besides, he is co-editor of 3 books. He has also been serving as a guest editor in several prestigious journals such as Journal of Cleaner Production; Energy and Buildings; Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments; Energy for Sustainable Development; Energy; Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials. He was enlisted among world’s top 2% scientists according to Stanford University in last three consecutive years. His fields of interest are energy efficient buildings, thermal energy storage, solar energy, and thermal management.

Abstract: The keynote is focused on the implementation of innovative design and optimization strategies for solving multi-criteria problems, in which the structural design of civil buildings complies with the sustainability goals of this century. Moreover, resilience aspects in structure and infrastructures will be discussed with reference to monitoring and control.

The first part of the discussion will include also the Greece's Polyfytos viaduct, the nation's second-longest bridge spanning 1,372 meters, renowned also for providing access to key power plants in South-East Europe. The study has interdisciplinary aspects, considering not only different technological solutions but also LCA and LCC, along with a study of quantifying the resilience of the different solutions under investigation. Thus, the focus in reinforcement and retrofitting solutions is not purely on technical aspects but associates considerations related to economic and environmental costs, and the overall resilience of the solution. So the design proposal that emerges is characterized by a holistic and multidisciplinary approach for transportation infrastructure that in many countries around the world is facing these kinds of issues related to aging and capacity degradation.

The second part of the discussion will focus on a Genetic Algorithm and the well-known one-dimensional bin packing problem (BPP) within a structural optimization process for civil engineering structures. The Objective Function formulation lies in a marked change of the paradigm, in which the target function is represented by the amount of steel required by the factory instead of the structural cost (e.g. weight). The proposed approach is tested on different steel structures with an increasing number of pieces moving from 2D truss beams to 3D domes. The comparison between the traditional minimum-weight approach and the proposed one has been provided for each case study, highlighting economic and environmental benefits deriving from the latter one.

Biography: Dr. Marco Domaneschi is Assistant Professor and lecturer of courses in Earthquake Engineering and Structural Design (since 2016) at Politecnico di Torino. He graduated at University of Pavia in Civil Engineering, specialization at UPC Barcelona. He was a professional structural engineer and consultant for special structures (3 years), and also a consultant in mechanical and computational engineering for industry (8 years). He had his PhD in civil engineering at the University of Pavia (2006). He was associate researcher and adjunct professor in Structural Engineering courses at Politecnico di Milano (2007-2016). He is Associate Editor of the Journal of Vibration and Control SAGE, Associate Editor of Bridge Engineering of The Institution of Civil Engineers UK, and Associate Editor of Frontiers in Built Environment. He is Editorial Board Member of Advances in Eng. Software ELSEVIER, J Traffic and Transportation Eng. ELSEVIER, J Building Pathology and Rehabilitation SPRINGER, Structural Monitoring and Maintenance TECHNO-PRESS, and Bridge Eng. - ICE (2014-2022). He is reviewer for several journals, speaker, session chair, editorial board member and organizer of more than 20 conferences. He is holder of patents, registered and under evaluation. He received Takuji Kobori Prize 2014 and other research awards. He is scientific leader and participant in commercial and public research programs. He is author of more than 70 journal publications, 130 papers to conference proceedings, 1 book and some chapters. He is member of professional and research societies EACS, IABMAS, ISHMII, SPONSE, SISCON (www.siscon.polito.it), ArtIStE (http://www.civilml.polito.it). He is included in "World's Top 2% Scientists" list, Stanford University - Elsevier.

Abstract: Carbon dioxide is a major greenhouse gas contributing to the climate change, and its capture and storage in the subsurface ecosystems is one option for long-term management of this gas from industries for a sustainable development. In the subsurface ecosystems, due to the indigenous microbiota, the fate of CO₂ in such ecosystems is not known and studies were carried out to investigate the indigenous microbiome in subsurface ecosystem, their metabolic capabilities in transforming the injected CO₂ to advance the current knowledge on CO₂ capture in subsurface ecosystems for permanent storage using Illumina sequencing of genomic DNA and transcribed RNA, detection and identification of transformation metabolites, the genes responsible, and also thermodynamics calculation to find out the best conditions for CO₂ conversion to bioenergy as a future technology in energy management. In laboratory-based incubation, studies were conducted to determine the fate of CO₂ and also the responses of microbial community. In addition, a promising strategy to stimulate and accelerate biological transformation of CO₂ into methane as energy was achieved in this study with ZVI as the alternative electron donor. Enrichment of Methanothermobacter spp. supported their competitive role in biological production of methane process via CO₂-reducing methanogenesis and formate methanogenesis in ZVI-amended cultures. The detected FeCO₃ mineral also presents a potential for immobilization of CO₂ in the presence of ZVI under the anaerobic conditions. Biomethane production with high rates (> 61.67 μmol/(l·d)) amended with ZVI detected in this study provided a potential opportunity for value-added CO₂ management technologies and further bioenergy regeneration from CO₂ in EOR and CCS of oil reservoirs. Stable isotope C-13 labelled CO₂ was used to trace the transformation and fate of introduced CO₂ in the microcosm systems in this study with minerals or sunlight as a source of electron. Results suggest that biotransformation of CO₂ to CH₄ and also organic fatty caids occur in simulated subsurface conditions and the rate of transformation ca be further accelerated by addition of ZVI as an addition a source of electron donor.

Biography: Ji-Dong Gu is currently a full professor of the Environmental Engineering, Guangdong Technion - Israel Institute of Technology and also Israel Institute of Technology. He obtained his B.Sc from Heilongjiang August First Land reclamation University, M.Sc. from University of Alberta (Canada), and Ph.D. from Virginia Tech (USA). After a brief post-doc at University of Massachusetts – Lowell, he joined Ralph Mitchell’s Laboratory at Harvard University for 6 years before taking a faculty position at The University of Hong Kong for more than 21 years. After resigning from the University in Hong Kong, he started his new full-time position with Guangdong Technion - Guangdong Israel Institute of Technology in 2020.

His recent research interest includes: 1) carbon and nitrogen cycling, including anaerobic ammonium oxidation and nitrite-dependent anaerobic methane oxidation; 2) oil field microbiology for enhanced oil recovery and pollution remediation; and 3) microbiology of cultural heritage.

His h-index is 86, i10-index 449, and total citations of 27,249 (GoogleScholar). He has been the world top 1% scientists by WoS since 2013. He has published in the areas of applied and environmental microbiology and toxicology with more than 450 refereed scientific journal papers, 40 book chapters. He co-edited a book with Ralph Mitchell on ‘Environmental Microbiology’ (2^nd ed, John Wiley-Blackwell. 2010), and wrote a book on ‘Biosusceptibility of Polymers and Fiber-reinforced Composites and Testing Methods’ (Springer, 2024/5), and additionally edited/co-edited 8 special issues in International Biodeterioration & Biodegradation, Ecotoxicology, International Journal of Molecular Sciences, and Frontiers in Microbiology. In the Environmental Science and Engineering category, he is ranked the top scientists and highly cited in China.

He is the editor-in-chief for International Biodeterioration & Biodegradation (2015– ).