Green University

In today’s industrial world, environmental issues have become extremely alarming, highlighting the need for taking serious actions. Along all aspects of management, organizations have lately taken green management into account to make sure they are performing their tasks with the least environmental impacts and meeting the future need. Green management assesses a process in terms of sustainability, and judges whether it is harmful to the environment or not.

Taken actions for municipal water usage management:

Division of university’s municipal water into sectors, running hydrostatic tests, and determination of damaged parts.
Using hydrostatic tests’ results for replacement and modification of corroded and sensitive parts.
Periodic check-ups of shut off valves and substitution of corroded water faucets.
Implementation of control plans on water replacement with meter installations.
Periodic check-ups of water faucets and prevention of water leakages.
Decrease of flash-tanks water charge-up volumes, substitution of old flash-tanks with new ones, and utilization of smaller tanks.
substitution of bath faucets with 2-handle faucets in bathrooms.
reconstruction and modification of dorms’ interior architecture with the goal of separating wet locations from residential complexes.

Influence of student dorms’ modification on energy consumption

One complex of Isfahan University of Technology’s dorms contains:

144 4-person and 20 single or double rooms, 160 private bathrooms, 160 private wash-stands, and 60 WCs.

After the modification of interior architecture and omitting private bathrooms and wash-stands, 47 public bathrooms, 79 public wash-stands, and 79 public WCs were made available for use. With these changes occurred, based on the table below, heat and gas requirements for hot-water supply decreased 60 percent in comparison with the prior architecture.

Used materials for municipal water consumption management

Increase of foot pedal faucets in WCs.
Increase of automatic faucets in WCs.
Utilization of washing machines in University’s main dining hall.
Utilization of industrial pots in university’s main dining hall.
Construction of a 2000 m³ water reservoir.
Utilization of water saving shower heads in dorms, swimming pool, and physical education center showers.
Utilization of water saving shower heads equipped with “Air Turbo” system:

This system uses a technology of mixing water and air, decreasing the flow rate of 18 liters per minute in the old shower heads, to 9 l/min in the new ones.

Utilization of intelligent water distribution systems and innovation of intelligent water supplier systems.

Construction of two aerobic lagoon systems with capacities of 9050 m³.
Increase of wastewater entering university.
Wastewater capacity in 2016-2017 was 20 liters per second. This capacity increased to 40 liters per second for the consequent year.
Consultation with sanitation ministry and attaining permission for making use of 60 liters of wastewater per second for university’s greenbelt areas and north jungle irrigation.
Swimming pool’s wastewater transference to wastewater lagoons.
Transference of rain waters to wastewater lagoons.

Establishment of wastewater treatment package with a capacity of 50 liters per second

Benefits of the package:

Lower construction costs due to lighter materials and quicker operation.
Less space occupation.
Needless of controlling and returning sludge and draining and refilling reservoirs.
Far less sludge creation.
Wastewater quality assurance because of the complete burial of the package and the reduction of temperature variations, especially in severely hot or freezing periods.
Longer reservoir lifetimes and reducing maintenance costs.
No odor emissions and capability of guiding and eliminating odor completely because of the covered reservoirs.
Ability of sewage transference.
Easy operation due to the material of the reservoirs and equipment, and because of the process.
Reachable equipment from the surface, needless of excavating and draining the reservoirs.

Substitution of corroded pipes (metal and concrete) with polyethylene pipes.
Expansion of the university’s greenbelt drip irrigation system.
Area covered by drip irrigation in 2016: approximately 200 hectares.
Area covered by drip irrigation in 2018: approximately 220 hectares.
Revival of deep wells in university.
Flood irrigation performance in the beginning hours of the day in areas not covered by drip irrigation system.
Establishment of resistant and semi-resistant plants to dehydration in research greenhouses.
Increase of 160 thousand low-water-consuming trees.
Destroyed grass elimination and planting resistant-to-dehydration kinds.
Establishment and utilization of research farm of Lavark’s wastewater treatment lagoon.
Underground irrigation for trees.
Collecting rain water through storm drains in the water saving pool.
Making vistas out of dry and damaged wet areas.

Substitution of university’s lamps with LED lamps.
Motion detecting sensors installation in low-traffic areas.
Increasing capacitor banks in university’s power poles
Service and modification of capacitor banks.
Replacement of power lines.
Auto reclose and sectionneur installation university’s electric grid.
Periodic check-ups of electric grid and replacement of electrical components.
Revival of protective earths.
Identification of power poles.
Utilization of fluorescent lamps with electronic.
Development of a 20kW power plant.
Astronomical clock installation.
Development of a 100kW solar power plant (prospective).
Parking lots’ roof coating with photovoltaic panels (prospective).

Heating control

Enlargement of solar water heating system.

Solar water heating system’s capacity increased from 80,000 liters in 2016, to 100,000 liters in 2018.

Utilization of insulators in outer layers of buildings.
Utilization of automatic doors in buildings’ entrances.
Utilization of double-pane thermal break windows in buildings.

Establishment of repair and maintenance programs in engine rooms

Periodic technical check-ups of engine rooms.
Transference of evaporative coolers to roofed places.
Establishment of 5-layer piping in dorms’ reconstructions.
Trial running of an intelligent timing system for fan coils.
Substitution of engine rooms’ corroded equipment with modern equipment.

600 tone refrigeration turbo core centrifugal chiller in the engine house

The magnetic chiller with changing round speeds with centrifugal system is comprised of a centrifugal compressor with a turbo core. The central part of the chiller’s controlling equipment consists of a logical controller, capable of PLC programming.

Some of the centrifugal chiller features

This chiller is needless of lubricants, thus not making due-to-friction heat and functions with 100-110 efficiency.
Turbo core chillers’ operating technology is of the kind “Flooded” that has an increased efficiency of 20% in comparison with “DX” technology.
Turbo core compressors reduce the connection between rotor and bearing down to zero by creating magnetic fields on the shaft, controlling shaft’s position in bearing 10 times per second.
Turbo core chillers make use of both “VFD” and “IGV” technologies in a single compressor.
Turbo core compressors’ motors function entirely with DC with the feature of using AC for frequency control and DC for rotating the motors.
Turbo core compressors can function in up to 48,000rpm.
Turbo core compressors make noises of at most 73db.
Turbo core compressors have very low amounts of turbulence.
Cold water turbo core chillers need 2.9 gallons of water for every tone of refrigeration that is 40% less that of absorption chillers for the same function.
Turbo core chillers.

Energy and environment management/ waste management (environment preservation)

Separation of wet, dry, and recyclable waste.
Separation of infectious waste from non-infectious waste.
Dry leaves collection for natural fertilizer production.
Collection for production.
Reduction, and preferably not using single use plastics.
Metal waste utilization in tutorial workshops.
Scrap metal utilization in workshops.
Assigning servicing, greenbelt, and maintenance tasks to private sector.
NGO green message activation in university.
Severe water shortages during the year, preference of drying grass and saving old trees.
Preservation of university’s jungle areas that have the role of city’s lungs.

Office equipment control management/ paper and item usage control

Complete office automation system establishment for official communications.
Automationization of buying demands and warehouse management.
Automationization of working and services demands.
Sending notifications and educational messages via automation system.
Utilization of LED monitors in substituting old monitors with new ones.
Innovation of a management system in textile engineering department’s laboratories (SAMAN).
SAMAN system was innovated for the control of textile laboratories by textile engineering department. Using this system helps preventing a large amount of saving in paper forms uses.
Using the aid of information technology (IT) for holding video conference meetings.
Separation of papers and use of recycled papers.
Biogas production from waste (research plan).

Energy and environment management/ renewable energies

Increasing the capacity of solar water heaters photovoltaic panels.

Energy and environment management/ transportation system management

Expelling old autos from university’s transportation system and bringing in fuel-efficient and gas-burning cars.
Utilization of electric motorcycles.
Development and use of transportation control software for organizing fuel consumption
Development of a digital multifunction display in university.
Comprehensive and precise control of university’s taxis in terms of cars’ qualities for reducing environmental impacts.
Switch-off obligation for heavy cars that have to stop long enough in a particular place.
Design of the transportation control application to be installed on students’ cell-phones.
Development of a bicycling system in the university.
Holding walking and bicycling.

Development of official educational courses for B.Sc, MS, and PhD students concerning environment.
Creation of water, sewage, biotechnology, and bioengineering institutes.
Design of an educational site and introducing to academia.
Offering environment-related courses in all departments.
Performing student projects with an environmental function.
Holding educational enabling courses concerning green management, energy, and low-consumerism.
Holding educational workshops about recycling importance and reusing waste in country’s universities.
Educational workshops about national and international in allocation of water distribution.
Educational workshops concerning water crisis in Isfahan province.
Holding educational courses in the form of scientific tours in the environment.
Creation of necessary infrastructure for bicycle-use development (special bicycle pathways).

utilization of bio-absorbers for removing pollutants from marine environments (natural resources department).
Recognition of national potentials in wastewater treatment (natural resources department).
Evaluation of ecosocial and environmental potentials of Makran sea’s coast (natural resources department).
Isfahan’s suspended matter source finding, allocation, and prioritizing sources giving rise to these matter (natural resources department).
Measurement of gas and oil leakage pollutants (natural resources department).
Optimal operation of a multifunctional dam, using adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (civil engineering department).
Studying Isfahan’s essential materials preservation center in terms of civil engineering department).
Identification of controlling benchmarks for sustainability in terms of water resources (civil engineering department).
Editing pathway and highway ditching benchmarks (civil engineering department).

October 9^th, 2018

Zayandeh Rud’s celebration gathering with presence of active environmentalists, professors, and students; and discussion of Zayandeh Rud’s importance, challenges concerning its dry up, and facing problems.

January 19^th, 2019

Planning commemoration of national day of clean air by education and culture committee.

November 13^th- 15^th, 2018

Second congress of science and water and sanitation engineering and national gathering of municipal water supply and demand.

December 9^th and 10^th, 2018

Zayandeh Rud’s common resources monolithic management gathering.

Appreciation letter from Ms. Masoumeh Ebtekar, vice president and head of Environment Protection Organization

Furthering environmental goals as a green university

Appreciation letter from Dr. Mohammad Farhadi; science, research, and technology minister

Establishment of green management in the university

Appreciation letter from Mr. Sattar mahmoudi ghaem, Energy minister

Making use of modern methods for low water consumption

Appreciation letter from Dr. Mohammad Hossein Omid; vice president of ministry of science, research, and technology

Preparation of universities’ sanitation treatment and using standard wastewater in country’s modern irrigation systems