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A synergetic coupling of Blue-Green Infrastructure (BGI) with other uses could provide sustainable ecosystem-based solutions to the challenges faced by urban centres. The impact of human-made climate change on urban centres and human nutrition calls for changes in the management of urban land, to alleviate its accumulating negative impacts. The present study proposes the use of elements of Integrated Aquaculture, such as hydroponic systems, as an element of BGI to provide a nature-based solution to developing self-sufficient and sustainable urban food systems, alongside the provision of ecosystem services. The food production potential of BGI was investigated through two experiments, each of which lasted four weeks – an indoor experiment with three plant species, Pak Choi (Brassica rapa var. chinensis), Iceberg Lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) and Chinese Cabbage (Brassica pekinensis L.), grown in small Deep Water Culture (DWC) hydroponic units under controlled conditions to unserstand its nutrient uptake and biomass production potential, and an outdoor experiment where the plant species were grown in a hydroponic DFT-based Swimming Islands installed in a stormwater retention pond at Hof University of Applied Sciences, where its ability to compete in the external environment and produce food was studied. The plant species were found to reduce nitrate and phosphate in the small DWC units in the indoor experiment, with an average weekly phosphate removal of approximately 37%, 30% and 30% achieved by Pak Choi, Iceberg Lettuce and Chinese Cabbage respectively. In the first week of the experiment, an average nitrate depletion of approximately 80%, 62% and 70% were observed in the system (attributable not only to the plant species), and an average total above-root fresh biomass of approximately 80 g, 248 g and 62 g respectively was produced by Pak Choi, Iceberg Lettuce, Chinese Cabbage. However, the biomass production in the outdoor experiment was relatively much smaller.
The experiments in the present study showed that the plant species considered could reduce, in hydroponic Deep-Flow-Technique (DFT), nitrogen and phosphorus from water and do not need an additional oxygen supply of the holding water with technical equipment. Indeed, crops, such as Pak Choi, Iceberg Lettuce and Chinese cabbage could compete with external conditions and were suitable for use in DFT Swimming Islands during the summer months on a stormwater retention pond at Hof University. The suitability of the crops studied, in the form of hydroponics as BGI, to provide food in addition to ecosystem services was found to be unsatisfactory in the present study. This implies that additional research is necessary to investigate the resilience and nutrient demands of plant species that could potentially be used for food production within such environments.
Polyester fabrics are commonly dyed with the continuous disperse dyeing process and require a convection hot air dryer for drying and fixation of these fabrics. This convection hot air dryer is not only time-consuming compared to NIR drying but also energy intensive. For this reason, research was conducted to investigate if the newly developed advancedNIR® technology from Adphos Innovative Technologies GmbH is suitable for continuous disperse dyeing of polyester. There are specific parameters and temperatures which have been identified to help this technology be evaluated for its sustainable innovation potential for the textile industry. Eight disperse dyes were used from DyStar Colours Distribution GmbH, namely Dianix® XF2 (high energy) and Dianix® CC (medium energy). Trichromic colours (Dianix® Brown XF2/CC) have also been dyed to investigate the migration effect which was observed during the research. Different technology combinations were investigated for their potential application, especially spray application using rotating discs from Weitmann & Konrad GmbH & Co. KG / RotaSpray GmbH. These combined technologies could be a potential sustainable alternative process, which can be used in place of the convection hot air process, by replacing natural gas with electric power. Analysis of the final samples with optimized parameters shows improved levelness and fastness. Additional research is necessary to analyze the separate process steps in more detail.