Fraunhofer Institute for Factory Operation and Automation

• Provides a practical tool for choosing the best CO₂ transport option in CCUS systems. • Step-by-step cost calculation approach for CO₂ transport by truck. • Identifies cost thresholds for switching from trucking to pipelines: trucking is least-cost up to 400 t/d. • OPEX dominates CAPEX; energy and O&M form 60 % of total operating costs. • Sensitivity analysis highlights trailer capacity and electricity price impacts. This study presents a techno-economic evaluation of liquefied CO 2 transport via trucking, covering the full transport chain from liquefaction, buffer storage and trucking to reconditioning. The analysis spans a wide range of transport demands (25–1000 t/d) and distances (25–500 km), aiming to quantify the conditions under which trucking is a cost-effective alternative to pipeline transport. A detailed cost model was developed for each transport stage, including component-level capital and operating costs. Results indicate that trucking transport is economically favorable for long distances and low transport volumes, with its cost advantage ending beyond 400 t/d. As distance increases, trucking remains competitive at higher flow rates up to this threshold. Liquefaction is the dominant cost contributor at shorter distances, whereas the trucking part becomes the largest cost factor over longer distances. Buffer storage and reconditioning consistently contribute less to the total cost. Operational expenditure (OPEX) consistently exceeds capital expenditure (CAPEX), with energy consumption and liquefaction O&M costs together representing on average around 60% of OPEX (ranging from ∼80% for the 50 km case to ∼43% for the 500 km case). The Sensitivity analysis identifies trailer load capacity and electricity price as the most influential cost drivers, while fixed infrastructure costs have relatively minor impacts. Overall, this work provides a robust framework and practical insights for selecting cost-efficient CO 2 transport methods and supports future planning of CCUS systems. Beyond its quantitative findings, this study introduces a transparent, step-by-step methodology for CO 2 trucking cost assessment, filling a notable gap in existing literature.

In technology-enhanced education, there is always a mutual impact between pedagogy and technology. To maximize educational effectiveness while leveraging the appeal of contemporary technology, educators and developers have introduced time travel exploratory games. To meet the needs of occupational accident prevention—a task of societal relevance for the protection of human health and life, the avoidance of damage and major financial losses, and for the protection of the environment—these exploratory games have been enhanced into time travel prevention games. The phenomenon of time travel allows for, and even fosters, a deeper dovetailing of pedagogy and technology. During accident prevention training, participants who have caused a—fortunately, only virtual—disaster are offered the option of time travel. By returning to an earlier stage of the training, they have the opportunity to change the outcome and to achieve better results on their next attempt. This approach relies on insights into the role of human mental time travel in episodic knowledge representation. From a pedagogical perspective, educational game design means the anticipation and preparation of stories of success to be experienced during game-based training. Essential elements of these stories should be memorable and even worth retelling. From a technological perspective, a trainee’s mental time travel is digitally implemented—technology makes daydreams come true. Within practical training modules, several original and innovative concepts have been developed, implemented, and applied, such as modifications of the past that make pedagogical concepts operational.

Fiction is an ancient virtual reality technology that specializes in simulating human problems. The stories told are the media and, according to Marshall McLuhan, the medium is the message. The technology is interwoven with up to date digital media design and information technologies including artificial intelligence (AI). According to Keith Oatley, stories are the flight simulators of human social life. From the many fields of human life, emphasis is put on the training of occupational accident prevention. The potential of storytelling is deployed for the prevention of accidents to preserve human lives, to avoid human injuries, the damage of installations and financial losses. Aiming at effectiveness and sustainability, the task under consideration is the interdisciplinary design of spaces of stories with a high educational potential. The authors abandon the educational paradigm of telling stories of disaster. Interactive digital storytelling is tailored to allow for unprecedented learner engagement in stories of success. Prevention training is designed to appear playfully based on the original concept of time travel prevention games. Trainees who failed to complete their task—thereby possibly ruining a (fortunately only virtual) technical installation—are enabled to travel back in time to do better the next time. AI guides the trainees to a success of their own. In the condition of training with time travel prevention games, designing spaces of stories to be experienced playfully is an ambitious variant of gamification. The design of stories in story spaces is a particularly complex case of dynamic AI planning. Patterns that occur in story spaces wrap educational theory as well as ideas of game design. The plan generation concepts foster interdisciplinary co-operation of educators, domain experts, VR specialists, game designers, psychologists, and others in creating spaces of affective stories of success.

Abstract We consider the problem of collecting and processing waste material. At a production facility, a known amount of inventory is required for production (e.g., paper) for every period. Instead of new material, the facility relies on collected and processed waste material (e.g., paper waste). This material is collected from regional waste collection locations. The amount of waste material per location is uncertain, as is the quality of the collected waste, i.e., the resulting inventory when processing the material. If the inventory is insufficient at the end of a period, costly new material must be bought. Each period, decisions are made about how much waste material to collect from which location and how to route the collection vehicles accordingly. Ideally, inventory is built to hedge against quality uncertainty and to ensure efficient routing operations in future periods. We propose a stochastic lookahead method that samples a set of scenarios and solves a simplified two-stage stochastic program in every period. We show the value of our method for two case studies, one based on real-world data from Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany, and one from the literature with data from the United Kingdom. We further conduct a detailed analysis of our method and the problem characteristics. The results show that our method effectively anticipates all sources of uncertainty, reducing cost significantly compared to benchmark policies. This superior performance is due to appropriate state-dependent supplier selection that considers the percentage of material loss, available material, and routing cost for current and future periods.

Wann immer eine Charge eines bestimmten Produkts hergestellt wird, kommt eine Art von Batch-System zum Einsatz, in dem Anlagen hierarchisch strukturiert und automatisiert werden. Mit dem Module Type Package (MTP) für PEAs (Process Equipment Assemblies) ist schon im Engineering ein Teil der Arbeit geleistet. Da die chemisch-pharmazeutische Industrie aber zu einem Großteil aus Bestandsanlagen besteht, die mit nicht MTP-fähigen Prozessleitsystemen orchestriert werden, stellt sich hier die Frage, was es zur Integration von neuen Technologien wie PEAs mit dem MTP benötigt. Insbesondere durch die Integration von vorgetesteten und eindeutig beschriebenen Modulen kann hier das Risiko von neuen Technologien reduziert werden. In diesem Beitrag wird vorgestellt, was es braucht, um bestehende Batch-Systeme und Module mit MTP gemeinsam zu nutzen – das hybrid Batch.

Programming of robots based on the sequencing and execution of high-level function blocks (advanced skills) is a method to increase flexibility, which is necessary to enable applications, such as the dismantling of old appliances or waste from electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE). Such skills are characterized by their capability of acting autonomously depending on the context and situation. This requires the management of model data. Here, we show an application of the Asset Administration Shell (AAS) for making data on static robot models as well as on the dynamic state available to domain-specific software components. The implemented system shows the use of such digital twins for programming and action generation of intelligent robots. We used a bottom-up approach that relies on the integration of already available data representations while adding information necessary for practical use. The system demonstrates a particular sub task of a WEEE disassembly operation.

The decarbonization of energy systems (electric, thermal, gas, and transportation) requires flexibility to integrate power generated by volatile and renewable energy sources (vRES). Industrial systems can contribute to exploiting the flexibility needed to integrate the electricity generated by vRES into energy systems. Designing industrial systems as Net-Zero Energy Factories (NZEF) offers the possibility of exploiting the flexibility that could be used internally to integrate the power generated by renewable energy sources. This study addresses, on one hand, the presentation of a methodology to identify and quantify the flexibility potential of continuous processes typical in dairy systems. On the other hand, it aims to demonstrate a methodology for designing additional flexibility options to operate dairy systems as NZEF. A model has been developed in which the energetic and material flows of conventional diary systems are simulated. The model allows for the design of conventional dairy systems as NZEF and the evaluation of their potential to exploit flexibility. Two different European climate zones have been investigated: Bari (Italy) and Magdeburg (Germany). This study is relevant for designers and facility managers who are following their decarbonization plans, aiming to operate their industrial facility as Net-Zero Energy. The results of this study show that for dairy systems designed as Net-Zero Energy Factories and located in southern Europe (Bari, Italy), the operational costs are much lower than those operating in central Europe (Magdeburg, Germany). Specifically, integrating an 800 kW PV system reduced operational costs by 16.3 % in Bari, compared to 3.8 % in Magdeburg. Additionally, achieving 97 % vRES integration in Bari requires a 1000 kWh thermal storage capacity, whereas in Magdeburg, a 500 kWh capacity is sufficient. These findings suggest that NZEF designs can be optimized based on regional climatic conditions to maximize cost efficiency and vRES integration. The analysis indicates that sensible heat storage systems should be preferred over electrochemical batteries when designing additional flexibility options, considering both technical and economic criteria.

O setor residencial tem grande influência no consumo de energia do país, sendo esse consumo diretamente ligado ao desempenho térmico das edificações, e consequentemente, seu conforto. O aumento do consumo traz a importância de pensar em estratégias projetuais que busquem minimizar os impactos ambientais, ainda em fase de estudo preliminar do projeto, e produzir espaços com um bom desempenho energético e confortáveis termicamente. O presente trabalho, através da simulação computacional, analisou materiais e métodos construtivos que colaboram diretamente com a produção desses espaços, destacando que as ferramentas computacionais se mostram como grandes facilitadores na hora de tomar decisões assertivas de projeto. Com simulações simples, foi possível observar grandes variações de temperatura operativa dentro do cômodo de estudo de caso escolhido, reforçando que decisões projetuais afetam diretamente o conforto térmico das construções. Através de pequenas alterações, já foi possível observar grande influência nas técnicas utilizadas para construir, mostrando que pensar em espaços que tenham um bom desempenho térmico, para além de produzir espaços confortáveis para seus usuários, produz espaços que colaboram com a diminuição do consumo de energia.