Issue 01/2023 (January)

CCUS technologies have the potential to play a key role to succeed in the EU energy transition, and R&I activities are crucial. Building industrial-scale CCUS projects will identify new research objectives that can best be achieved by undertaking R&I in paralel with large-scale implementation activities in cooperation with industry partners.

One of the factors determining the technical and economic efficiency of water supply systems is the amount of water losses in the distribution system. Systematic assessment of water losses is relatively rarely carried out in rural water supply systems. This is due to both objective technical difficulties and often the conviction that these losses are insignificant. The article presents the results of the assessment of water losses in two selected rural waterworks, managed by the same waterworks company. The IWA (International Water Association) method and the index method were used to prepare the assessment. The assessment was supplemented with the reliability aspect, using the calculated failure rate indicator. The conducted research showed significant differences in the amount of water losses in both analyzed water supply systems, despite similar operating conditions.

The materials used in installations for drawing, treatment, storage and distribution of water intended for human consumption may affect its quality in different ways and varying degrees. The legally required migration analytical control of substances migrating from the materials used for construction and servicing of those installations should prevent contamination of water at levels that are higher than necessary in view of the intended purpose of application of a given material. The global market for materials and products requires that these are not any test methods, but methods described by international standards. In order to bring the subject closer, especially from the practical side, the European Standards for testing and measurement in the field of assessment of the impact of migration from hydraulic installation materials on the quality of water intended for human consumption were reviewed. The standards have been introduced into the set of Polish Standards in the last decade. The basic importance can be attributed to a four-part PN-EN 12873 standard concerning migration tests from organic or glassy materials, materials other than non-metallic and non-cementitious site-applied materials; ion exchange and adsorbent resins and water treatment membranes. The review is supplemented with a discussion of standardized methods to determine the migration of substances from factory-made cementitious products, from nickel layers or coatings containing nickel as well as a test method to determine the residual lead on the surface of test specimens made from lead-containing copper alloys.

The principles presented in this paper for formulating heavy rainfall probabilistic mods developed at the Wrocław University of Science and Technology in 2010–2015 after the modifications of 2019 and 2020 can be universal. The proposed 50-year measurement period for extracting an independent random sample of rain using the POT method is suitable for reliably assessing the frequency of occurrence from C = 1 to C = 50 years. To describe the height of the maximum rain, from among eight possible theoretical probability distributions, the usefulness of two distributions was indicated: Weibull and GED. Theunification of the methodology for creating models of maximum rain in Poland will enable physically correct mutual comparison of their local heights and provide a basis for estimating trends of change in the future.

In Poland, there are no strict formal, legal and methodological regulations regarding the assessment of the odour nuisance of facilities and installations,including e.g. in sewage and waste management. In these conditions, the method of direct field olfactometry for determining odour concentrations using Nasal Ranger® and Scentroid SM100 instruments was refined and implemented on the operating installations. The conducted research also uses chemical methods for determining the concentrations of basic odorants (substances), i.e. ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, mercaptans and volatile organic compounds. The intensity of the fragrance is assessed in sensory tests according to a six-point scale. Measurements of air pollution concentrations are accompanied by control of microclimate conditions affecting the formation and spreading of odours. The article presents examples of the use of field olfactometry for the assessment of installations in municipal management.