Next Sustainability最新文献

Nowadays the replacement of cement with pozzolanic materials is becoming a very hot topic as a result of CO₂ emission challenges during cement production. Pore structures of pozzolanic materials allow understanding of their effects on pore parameters of cement-based composites. In this study, analytical solutions of surface porosity of waste brick powder (WBP) specimens generated from varying milling conditions were constructed using segmentation, watershed, and threshold algorithms. Scanning electron microscopy was combined with simulations of pore structures from Gwyddion leading to multi-scale driven surface porosity solutions. These methods for surface porosity characterisation of pozzolans can be boiled down to calls for sustainable construction. By implementing analytical methods, the porosity properties of WBP subjected to various milling conditions are successfully observed for the first time. Overall, the presented simulations using all the three methods proved that increasing the mass of clay bricks fed in ball mill reduced the fineness levels of WBP and increased the surface porosity values. It was shown that the porosity values from all the three methods ranged from 17% to 51%. The watershed simulations were noticed to underestimate the surface porosity values in comparison with threshold and segmentation simulations. The results on mean pore areas, number of pores, pore densities, pore volumes and mean pore sizes of WBP specimens were quite different from surface porosity results as variations became more evident for all three methods. The results from this research have highlighted that the proposed analytical solutions are fast and efficient in evaluating the overall behaviour of WBP in cement-based composites and represent reference points for engineering researchers involved in studies on supplementary cementitious materials.

The increasing consumption of fossil fuels and petroleum products leads to high prices, depletion of natural resources, and increased global warming. Therefore, there is a critical need for an alternative, greener fuel that could replace fossil fuels. Biodiesel derived from plant-based oil or biomass is a renewable and non-toxic energy source and has emerged as an alternative to diesel. Today, biodiesel may be manufactured from a range of feedstock using a variety of catalysts and recovery processes thanks to advances in catalytic chemistry technology. Recently, metal oxide-based heterogeneous catalysts have been promising materials for the (trans)esterification reactions of oils to produce biodiesel. The review briefly describes the recent advances in heterogeneous catalysts based on metal oxides for biodiesel production. The pros and cons of various techniques and the mechanism of biodiesel synthesis by heterogeneous catalysts are discussed to understand the topic better. Lastly, the scope of future research and challenges are also presented.

The working-age population is essential to the process of economic growth, and there is growing interest in understanding the demographic dividend's role in sustainable development, particularly in response to the challenge of environmental sustainability. The routes, however, via which the demographic dividend is likely to affect environmental sustainability, are poorly understood. This paper has provided a new case for a better understanding of the asymmetric effects of demographic dividend on environmental sustainability in African countries. To this end, we employed Driscoll-Kraay standard error and Instrumental Variable Generalized Method of Moments (IV-GMM) for a panel dataset of 32 African countries from 1996 to 2018. The empirical findings show that demographic dividend deteriorates environmental sustainability via an increase in the ecological footprint. The results also show that urbanization, globalization and renewable energy reduce ecological footprint. However, economic growth and ICT increase ecological footprint. Lastly, our findings highlight that economic growth, ICT, urbanization and FDI are channels through which demographic dividend affects environmental sustainability. Therefore, although supporting economic growth, Africa's working-age population also contributes to some degree to environmental pressure.

Atomically dispersed metal-site catalysts, especially those derived from high temperature calcination of zeolite-based imidazole salt framework (ZIFs), have great potential in catalyzing oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) with slow kinetics owing to their large atomic utilization and tunable coordination environment. However, ZIFs-derived carbon-based catalysts often exhibit octahedral particle morphology and thus complex post-treatment processes were usually required to modulate the pore structure of the membrane electrodes to enhance the utilization of metal-site sites in the cathode ORR of fuel cells. Herein, a highly efficient catalyst with Fe/Co dual metal sites anchored onto N-doped carbon nanotubes (CNTs) was synthesized by one-step calcination based on the explosion effect of ClO₄^- ion and Fe-Co bimetal coordination interaction, named FeCo-N-CNT. The introduction of ClO₄^- ions and Fe/Co bimetals gives the catalyst a dense reachable active site and a hierarchical porous structure. It is worth noting that the half-wave potential of the FeCo-N-CNT reached 0.9 V in an alkaline medium and showed good cyclic stability. More impressively, the FeCo-N-CNT also shows excellent ORR catalytic performance in both acid and neutral electrolytes, with a maximum power density 1.2 and 1.4 times higher than Fe-N-PC and Co-N-PC with single-metal sites in hydrogen fuel cells, respectively. This work provides a novel method for adjusting the structure of catalysts and improving the accessibility of metal-sites.

The search for sustainable practices as a way to accelerate the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has promoted the improvement of liquid biofuel supply chains on a global scale. Against this background, Brazil has presented an accelerated growth of ethanol and biodiesel production, as well as in the pursuit to the development and use of green diesel (hydrotreated vegetable oil). This scenario is the result of incentive and investment policies implemented in the last decades, placing Brazil in a prominent position in the liquid biofuels production chain, bringing important representation for the country in the international market. However, economic and political crises caused by the coronavirus pandemic and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine have caused, among other difficulties, production fluctuations and concerns about the world’s energy supply. Such factors have challenged the liquid biofuels market in Brazil, affecting the Brazilian biofuels policy, the RenovaBio, and generating uncertainties in this sector. This paper gathers a comprehensive overview of the current panorama of crop-based liquid biofuels in Brazil, and how the COVID-19 pandemic and the conflict in Eastern Europe have affected the ethanol and biodiesel industry in the country. Evidence shows that more than ever the Brazilian government needs to intervene so that the liquid biofuels sector can resume its steady development and evolution, particularly by appeasing the unnecessary competition between biodiesel and green diesel, to foster the country’s potential to be more efficient in clean energy production and more independent from fossil fuels.

Lithium iron phosphate batteries (LFP), widely used as power sources, are forecasted to reach the terawatt-hour scale, inevitably leading to battery waste and expediating the urgency for effective recycling processes for LFP. The modern recycling methodologies based on material recovery face significant economic, environmental, and energy consumption challenges. This research attempts to resolve these challenges by providing direct cathode regeneration based on the principles of an external short-circuit to replenish lithium lost in the spent cathode with lithiated materials (LiC₆, Li metal). Given that most active lithium loss in the cathode is caused by the growth of the solid electrolyte interphase rather than structural damage, restoring the lost lithium can revitalize a spent cathode battery’s electrochemical performance to a near-original state. The lithium loss in LFP cathodes ranging from 20% to 80% was renewed by supplementing lithium. Relithiation of 10Ah commercial LFP spent cathode showed revitalized electrochemical performance. Compared to the modern recycling methods, direct cathode regeneration improves the economic benefits of recycling by 33%, decreases energy consumption by 48%, and reduces carbon emissions by 62%. Direct cathode regeneration provides a scaffold for the next generation of recycling methods to improve recycling efficiency while reducing their environmental footprint.

This review is aimed at the actions of radical oxygen species (ROS) produced during the photocatalysis reaction on the different biomolecules composing the microorganisms, as well as the presentation and development of the key operational parameters influencing the efficiency of the photocatalytic treatment in the context of saltwater applications. Our study focuses on the case of heterogeneous photocatalysis, one of the advanced oxidation processes (AOP). This work highlights the importance of the analytical composition of the water (pH, salt, dissolved organic matter.) on the catalyst/target interactions. Similarly, the structural composition of microorganisms (cell wall biomolecules) also plays a key role in the sensitivity to the photocatalysis process, and to a lesser extent, their metabolism also has an impact on their resistance. Another important point of our work is that it highlights the fact that to date, there is no standardization in the way results from the literature are reported, making it extremely difficult to compare data for the purpose of evaluating different processes. Finally, our work underlines that photocatalysis is particularly promising for bio-securing applications like the decontamination of seawater in aquaculture via the treatment of tanks and closed aquariums, as well as for the shipping industry via the treatment of ballast water.

Climate change significantly impacts building performance. Indoor comfort, energy demand, carbon emissions, and building maintenance costs vary according to the local climate. This research has been conducted, to investigate, simulate, analyze, compare and discuss the potential impact of climate change on thermal comfort, heating and cooling energy needs in a hospital, hotel, school and residential home located in the top 8 deserts and the top 8 coldest regions in the world. Simulations were conducted for future climate using ten (10) general circulation models (GCM) based on three emission scenarios, namely B1(low emission), A1B (middle emission), and A2 (high emission); and Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) (RCP2.6; RCP 4.5, and RCP 8.5). The thermal performance of buildings was assessed for three periods (Current, 2050 and 2100). The results showed that in 2100, air temperature is expected to increase up to 4.9 °C in desert regions, this effect will produce an increase of 34.5% in cooling load, and 73% of the not comfortable rate in the buildings; while in the same year, in the coldest regions, the air temperature is expected to increase up to 5.5 °C, producing a decrease of heating load up to 15.5%, and an increase of comfort rate up to 25%. The thermal comfort temperature range was between 23.9 °C and 29.8 °C. In desert regions, the heating loads are very low, indeed, they represent only 6.5% of the total loads (loads used for cooling and heating), while in the coldest regions, the cooling loads represent only 7.3% of the total loads.

The revolutionary aspect and core values of the New European Bauhaus (NEB) are highly praised, but the initiative's success can only be judged by its approach to defining those values. The local climate plays an inextricable role in informing vernacular architecture, as do other physical, social, economic, and cultural determinants. On the NEB initiative website, it states that the NEB "calls on all of us to imagine and build together a sustainable and inclusive future," with inclusive defined as "encouraging a dialogue across cultures, disciplines, genders, and ages." Such a high-level vision is positive and encouraging, but the detailed action plans outlined in the NEB concept paper presented in June 2021 to the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, fell short of real evolutionary thinking about how to integrate vernacular knowledge. The NEB concept paper stated, "Both frontier technologies and vernacular techniques must be equally embraced. Advanced and emerging technologies must be balanced by other locally accessible tools, techniques, and strategies." The fundamental problem with such a statement is that it positions "vernacular techniques" at the other end of "frontier technologies," indicating that vernacular techniques are not "advanced and emerging." On the contrary, we believe that vernacular (or indigenous understanding) is the more advanced scientific knowledge in understanding the symbiotic relationship between the built environment and the natural environment.Hence, it should play a leading role in all climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts.