Annie Shea's CIVE4541 Blog

We've been having such a lovely time exploring Sardinia, but fear not, we've spent plenty of time learning too! Here are some pictures of all things waste management: Color-coded bales of separated plastic at the Arborea MSW handling facility. The plastic has been sorted via magnets, eddy currents, optical sorting, air jets, manual separation, and more. A landfill for residual waste and ashes at the Arborea MSW handling facility. There is an intermediate cover, and landfill gas is burned to produce CO2 (because its methane fraction is too low to be used for energy recovery).   Metals Separation at Sardinia Bio Energy - a magnet is used to separate metals from the biomass before it is sent to the combustion chamber. Air pollution control devices (and me!) at Sardinia Bio Energy. 3 cyclones and a baghouse with 1700 bags are used to manage air pollution. Lime is injected to remove acidic components from the flue gas and improve utilization. Mission Control for the Sardinia Bio Ene...

My, my, my.... where to even begin!  Ou r first weekend trip was absolutely incredible. We started off strong with the land rover ride - our carpool energy was UNMATCHED. We made our way through 2000s classics (Baby is still stuck in my head), country (Annalisa's fave), Spanish music (thank you Ian!), and more. Here's a pic of the band (first album coming soon): Voices tired and spirits high, we got off the rovers at our first stop - a mining complex named Montevecchio of the Medio Campidano province in the Arbus/Piscinas area. This complex was central to mining in south-west Sardinia, and is now a UNESCO world heritage site. We got a glimpse of the mining lifestyle (the 6-person lift system, the tools involved, the minerals - lead and silver - in demand, the associated dangers, and more). Then we channeled our inner 7 dwarves/District 12/Minecraft energy, donned our hard hats, and ventured down into the mines to explore: After our underground adventure, we hopped back in the r...

  Today, we had our first technical visit to the Arborea waste management complex. We learned about and observed their practices for plastic sorting, mechanical biological pre-treatment, and composting. It was cool to see the facility in action - I’ve never seen firsthand what happens to waste beyond collection. (The sheer volume and smell of waste are definitely motivating to reduce waste generation - I’ve been incredibly conscious of my disposal throughout this whole experience, but especially today!) As someone who’s studied chemical separation processes, I found it especially interesting to see the physical separation processes employed to separate the plastics. These included both rotating magnets and magnetic fields to separate out ferrous and non-ferrous metals, optical analysis and air jets to sort plastic by color, rotating disks to sort bottles and film, and manual separation. It was also cool to stand on top of a landfill - something that we’d never be able to do in the ...

I have been having an amazing experience in Cagliari! I’m thrilled that we have such a great group of students from Northeastern - everyone is friendly, fun, and eager to experience  the island and culture together. This past week, we chose 5 words to sum up why Cagliari is a great city to live in - here are some of the words we chose (and some of my own) to describe  my experience thus far: Weather (Clima) - The weather has been absolutely beautiful during our time here. Perfect for wandering the city, beach days, and our hike to Devil’s Saddle :) Beach (Spiggia) - I love the beach, and the beach here has certainly not disappointed (so much so that I went 3 times in my first four days!). The water feels amazing, there are excellent views, and it’s easily accessible via bus.  Food (Cibo) - I have wholeheartedly embraced immersing myself in the Italian culture by enjoying the food as much as possible. I’ve had excellent pasta, pizza, gelato, cappuccinos, traditional Sardin...