This book includes the proceedings of the 4th International Congress on Engineering and Sustainability in the XXI Century, INCREaSE 2025. INCREaSE is a congress with the aim to bring together valuable and novel scientific contributions that address the critical issues of renewable energy, sustainable building, sustainable manufacturing, sustainable food production, and other sustainability science and engineering topics that have an impact in this diverse and fast-changing research area, both in academia and industry.

This 4th edition of INCREaSE was held during July 14, 2025, in Faro, Portugal, organized by the Institute of Engineering and hosted by the University of Algarve.

The areas to be covered are:

• Big data and data analytics applied to sustainability.
• Climate change and mitigation, carbon reduction.
• Combined heat and power and district heating systems.
• Control and optimization of renewable energy systems.
• Energy and environmental assessment in buildings and cities.
• Food loss and food waste solutions.
• Food safety and quality engineering.
• Information technology and artificial intelligence applied to sustainability.
• Nanoelectronic, nanomachining, and new nanomaterials.
• Smart buildings, smart cities, smart districts, smart countryside.
• Sustainability in water management.
• Sustainable building technologies.
• Sustainable development and circular economy.
• Sustainable energy generation and management.
• Sustainable food processing and packaging.
• Sustainable manufacturing and maintenance processes and technology.
• Sustainable technologies for risk mitigations.
• Sustainable transport, smart vehicles, and smart roads.
• Thermofluids' modeling and experiments for sustainability.
  High-quality and unpublished content is an essential feature for all included papers. Moreover, the Program Committee of the conference guarantees that contributions are subjected to an appropriate level of reviewing process.

Contains only high-quality and unpublished contributions selected by the conference committee Examines sustainability in a number of areas and industries from construction to food processing and beyond Brings together valuable and novel scientific contributions to the sustainable development in a multidisciplinary way

Autorentext

Jorge Semião is Coordinating Professor at the University of Algarve and Senior Researcher at INESC-ID Lisbon, with a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Instituto Superior Técnico. His research focuses on electronic systems, IoT, fault detection, non-intrusive monitoring, and AI-based applications in energy, agriculture, and cyber-physical systems. He has participated in and coordinated multiple national and European R&D projects, including Horizon Europe and Interreg initiatives, and is Author of several scientific publications, book chapters, and patents. He also serves as Editor of international conference proceedings and special journal issues in electronics and power systems.

Professor Nelson Sousa graduated in Mechanical Engineering in 1997 and earned his Ph.D. in 2014 from Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), University of Lisbon, Portugal. He is currently Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Institute of Engineering, University of Algarve. Over the years, he has held management positions within the department and played a key role in developing several academic programs. He has been actively involved in projects related to sustainable energy and mobility, as well as in establishing an accredited laboratory for testing biomass combustion equipment. His research focuses on solid fuel combustion, and the torrefaction of biomass and refuse-derived fuel (RDF), with several publications in peer-reviewed journals and international conferences.

Rui M. S. Cruz holds a Ph.D. in biotechnology, with expertise in food science and engineering (2009). He is Adjunct Professor in the Department of Food Engineering, ISE, University of Algarve, and Researcher at MED and CHANGE. His research focuses on biodegradable food packaging and innovative food processing technologies. He has participated in and evaluated numerous research projects, authored over 45 journal papers and book chapters, and presented widely at national and international conferences. He has edited 5 international books and reviewed more than 3,250 manuscripts. He has also served as Editor for more than 170 papers. He is Member of the editorial boards of several international journals, including LWT Food Science and Technology, Applied Food Research, Discover Food, Food Control, Foods, and Frontiers in Food Science and Technology.

Gonçalo Prates is Adjunct Professor at the University of Algarve s Instituto Superior de Engenharia, where he has taught since 1997. He holds a Ph.D. in geodesy and geophysics from the Universidad de Cádiz, Spain. His research focuses on the Earth s lithospheric response to tectonic and volcanic processes, as well as to tidal (Ocean Tide Load) and glacial (Glacial Isostatic Adjustment) surface loads, using space geodesy techniques such as Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR). He has collaborated with the Spanish Active Volcanism Group during unrest episodes and submarine eruptions near El Hierro (Canary Islands) and participated in Antarctic campaigns to monitor volcanic activity at Deception Island and quantify permafrost-related geomorphological dynamics via remote sensing, satellite imagery, photogrammetry, and UAVs. Prates s work bridges geophysics, volcanology, and environmental change, contributing to both field and remote sensing research in Earth sciences.

Inhalt

Part 1: Climate change and mitigation, environmental risk assessment and carbon reduction.- Contribution to the study of carbon fluxes in Mediterranean Citrus Or-chards.- When the summer night doesn't cool: Extreme minimum temperatures in Portugal (19802024).- Improving environmental assessment and pollution monitoring in Algarve Marinas.- Assessments of risks in underwater cultural heritage sites vulnerable to Oceanic hazards.- Part 2: Water management and fluids modelling.- Hydrodynamic processes in the Arade Estuary A field-based and modelling analysis.- Resource recovery from synthetic domestic wastewater using single and multi-batch electrodialysis.- 3D hydrodynamical modelling of a Marine protected area near Cartagena, Colombia.- Validation of a hydrodynamic model for the Dominican Republic coastal and offshore waters using gliders salinity and temperature data.- Part 3: Special session on water for people, planet and prosperity: Challenges and opportunities.- Identification of homogeneous regions based on climatic indices: Application to the douro hydrographic region (RH3), Portugal.- Metal recovery from acid mine drainage by using microbial fuel cells.- Integrating nature-based solutions into urban planning: A methodology for quantifying intervention priorities.- Part 4: Sustainable manufacturing and maintenance processes and technology.- The importance of selected aspects of sustainable production of consumer chemicals from the perspective of consumers.- Sustainable packaging redesign for household chemicals and cosmetics products.- Part 5: Special session on smart grids and sustainable energy integration: Innovations, challenges, and future directions.- Research and development of pilot projects of renewable energy communities in rural areas of Portugal and Spain.- Fault detection in energy communities using distributed model predictive control.- Optimizing solar energy production at Gago Coutinho Airport.- A leakage flux-based approach for winding fault diagnosis in power transformers.- Part 6: Cyber-physical systems for sustainable agriculture innovation.- The AgriFeedBot project: An agricultural cyber-physical system for autonomous feeding in indoor and outdoor en…