Environmental Science and Ecotechnology最新文献

{"title":"Towards sustainable agroecosystems: A life cycle assessment review of soil-biodegradable and traditional plastic mulch films","authors":"Oluwatunmise Israel Dada ,&nbsp;Teshan Udayanga Habarakada Liyanage ,&nbsp;Ting Chi ,&nbsp;Liang Yu ,&nbsp;Lisa Wasko DeVetter ,&nbsp;Shulin Chen","doi":"10.1016/j.ese.2025.100541","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ese.2025.100541","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The increasing use of traditional agricultural plastic mulch films (PMs) has raised significant environmental concerns, prompting the search for sustainable alternatives. Soil-biodegradable mulch films (BDMs) are often proposed as eco-friendly replacements; however, their widespread adoption remains contentious. This review employs a comparative life cycle assessment perspective to evaluate the environmental impact of PMs and BDMs across their production, use, and end-of-life stages, providing strategies to mitigate their impact on agroecosystems. BDMs generally exhibit lower energy use and greenhouse gas emissions than PMs but contribute to greater land-use demands. Reported eutrophication and acidification potentials are less consistent, varying based on feedstock types and the scope of assessment of BDM, as well as the end-of-life management of PM. The environmental burden of both mulch types is influenced by the life cycle stage, polymer composition, farming practices, additives, film thickness, and local climatic conditions. The manufacturing stage is a major contributor to energy use and greenhouse gas emissions for both PMs and BDMs, despite their shared benefits of increasing crop yields. However, post-use impacts are more pronounced for PMs, driven by end-of-life strategy and adsorbed waste content. While starch-based BDMs offer a more sustainable alternative to PMs, uncertainties regarding the residence time of BDM residues in soil (albeit shorter than PM residues) and their effects on soil health, coupled with higher production costs, impede widespread adoption. For BDM end-of-life, soil biodegradation is recommended. Energy and material recovery options are crucial for PM end-of-life, with mechanical recycling preferred, although it requires addressing eutrophication and human toxicity. This review discusses these complexities within specific contexts and provides actionable insights to guide the sustainable integration of mulch films into agricultural practices.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":34434,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Science and Ecotechnology","volume":"24 ","pages":"Article 100541"},"PeriodicalIF":14.0,"publicationDate":"2025-02-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143419786","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Phytoremediation of microplastics by water hyacinth","authors":"Jingjing Yin ,&nbsp;Tongshan Zhu ,&nbsp;Xiaozun Li ,&nbsp;Fayuan Wang ,&nbsp;Guoxin Xu","doi":"10.1016/j.ese.2025.100540","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ese.2025.100540","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Microplastics have emerged as pervasive environmental pollutants, posing significant risks to both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems worldwide. Current remediation strategies—including physical, chemical, and microbial methods—are inadequate for large-scale, in situ removal of microplastics, highlighting the urgent need for alternative solutions. Phytoremediation, an eco-friendly and cost-effective technology, holds promise in addressing these challenges, though its application to microplastic pollution remains underexplored. Here we show the capacity of <em>Eichhornia crassipes</em> (water hyacinth), a fast-growing, floating aquatic plant, to remove microplastics from contaminated water. Our results show that within 48 h, water hyacinth achieved removal efficiencies of 55.3 %, 69.1 %, and 68.8 % for 0.5, 1, and 2 μm polystyrene particles, respectively, with root adsorption identified as the primary mechanism. Fluorescence microscopy revealed that the extremely large and abundant root caps, featuring a total surface area exceeding 150,000 mm² per plant, serve as the principal sites for the entrapment of microplastics. Furthermore, a unique “vascular ring” structure within the stem prevents the translocation of microplastics to aerial tissues, safeguarding leaves for potential downstream applications. This study offers the first microstructural insight into the mechanisms underpinning water hyacinth's exceptional microplastic adsorption capacity and resilience, providing a promising framework for developing phytoremediation strategies to mitigate microplastic pollution in aquatic ecosystems.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":34434,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Science and Ecotechnology","volume":"24 ","pages":"Article 100540"},"PeriodicalIF":14.0,"publicationDate":"2025-02-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143419784","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Urban fabric decoded: High-precision building material identification via deep learning and remote sensing","authors":"Kun Sun ,&nbsp;Qiaoxuan Li ,&nbsp;Qiance Liu ,&nbsp;Jinchao Song ,&nbsp;Menglin Dai ,&nbsp;Xingjian Qian ,&nbsp;Srinivasa Raghavendra Bhuvan Gummidi ,&nbsp;Bailang Yu ,&nbsp;Felix Creutzig ,&nbsp;Gang Liu","doi":"10.1016/j.ese.2025.100538","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ese.2025.100538","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Precise identification and categorization of building materials are essential for informing strategies related to embodied carbon reduction, building retrofitting, and circularity in urban environments. However, existing building material databases are typically limited to individual projects or specific geographic areas, offering only approximate assessments. Acquiring large-scale and precise material data is hindered by inadequate records and financial constraints. Here, we introduce a novel automated framework that harnesses recent advances in sensing technology and deep learning to identify roof and facade materials using remote sensing data and Google Street View imagery. The model was initially trained and validated on Odense's comprehensive dataset and then extended to characterize building materials across Danish urban landscapes, including Copenhagen, Aarhus, and Aalborg. Our approach demonstrates the model's scalability and adaptability to different geographic contexts and architectural styles, providing high-resolution insights into material distribution across diverse building types and cities. These findings are pivotal for informing sustainable urban planning, revising building codes to lower carbon emissions, and optimizing retrofitting efforts to meet contemporary standards for energy efficiency and emission reductions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":34434,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Science and Ecotechnology","volume":"24 ","pages":"Article 100538"},"PeriodicalIF":14.0,"publicationDate":"2025-02-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143419785","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Towards equitable carbon responsibility: Integrating trade-related emissions and carbon sinks in urban decarbonization","authors":"Junliang Wu ,&nbsp;Yafei Wang ,&nbsp;Shuya Zhang ,&nbsp;Yu Zhu ,&nbsp;Bingyue Fu ,&nbsp;Zhihui Zhang ,&nbsp;Hanxi Chen ,&nbsp;Shaoqing Chen","doi":"10.1016/j.ese.2025.100539","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ese.2025.100539","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Cities play a pivotal role in global decarbonization, acting as a critical driver of carbon emissions. Accurately allocating carbon mitigation responsibility (CMR) is essential for designing effective and equitable climate policies. How cities manage carbon leakage across boundaries through supply chains and implement plan of increasing forest carbon sinks are important components for designing a fair and inclusive CMR. However, the combined impact of trade-related carbon leakage and forest carbon sinks on CMR allocation remains poorly understood. Here, we develop an integrated CMR allocation framework that accounts for both carbon leakage and variation of forest carbon offsets. When applied to the cities within the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area in China, it becomes evident that the inclusion of carbon leakage results in substantial alterations in mitigation quotas. Adjustments are observed to vary between ±10 % and 50 % across these cities from 2005 to 2020, a trend that is anticipated to continue until 2035. The redistribution of outsourced emissions through supply chains alleviates the mitigation burden on producer cities by 20–30 %. Additionally, accounting for carbon sinks substantially influences CMR allocation, particularly in forest-rich cities, which may see their carbon budgets increase by up to 10 %. Under an enhanced climate policy scenario, the growth rate of total mitigation quotas from 2025 to 2035 is projected to decrease by 40 % compared to a business-as-usual trajectory, reducing the burden on major producer cities. Our proposed CMR framework provides a robust basis for incentivizing coordinated mitigation efforts, promoting decarbonization in supply chains and enhancement of urban carbon sink capacities.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":34434,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Science and Ecotechnology","volume":"24 ","pages":"Article 100539"},"PeriodicalIF":14.0,"publicationDate":"2025-02-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143376804","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Green AI – A multidisciplinary approach to sustainability","authors":"Jerry Huang ,&nbsp;Suchi Gopal","doi":"10.1016/j.ese.2025.100536","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ese.2025.100536","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":34434,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Science and Ecotechnology","volume":"24 ","pages":"Article 100536"},"PeriodicalIF":14.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143349867","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Generative spatial artificial intelligence for sustainable smart cities: A pioneering large flow model for urban digital twin","authors":"Jeffrey Huang,&nbsp;Simon Elias Bibri,&nbsp;Paul Keel","doi":"10.1016/j.ese.2025.100526","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ese.2025.100526","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Rapid urbanization, alongside escalating resource depletion and ecological degradation, underscores the critical need for innovative urban development solutions. In response, sustainable smart cities are increasingly turning to cutting-edge technologies—such as Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), Foundation Models (FMs), and Urban Digital Twin (UDT) frameworks—to transform urban planning and design practices. These transformative tools provide advanced capabilities to analyze complex urban systems, optimize resource management, and enable evidence-based decision-making. Despite recent progress, research on integrating GenAI and FMs into UDT frameworks remains scant, leaving gaps in our ability to capture complex urban flows and multimodal dynamics essential to achieving environmental sustainability goals. Moreover, the lack of a robust theoretical foundation and real-world operationalization of these tools hampers comprehensive modeling and practical adoption. This study introduces a pioneering Large Flow Model (LFM), grounded in a robust foundational framework and designed with GenAI capabilities. It is specifically tailored for integration into UDT systems to enhance predictive analytics, adaptive learning, and complex data management functionalities. To validate its applicability and relevance, the Blue City Project in Lausanne City is examined as a case study, showcasing the ability of the LFM to effectively model and analyze urban flows—namely mobility, goods, energy, waste, materials, and biodiversity—critical to advancing environmental sustainability. This study highlights how the LFM addresses the spatial challenges inherent in current UDT frameworks. The LFM demonstrates its novelty in comprehensive urban modeling and analysis by completing impartial city data, estimating flow data in new locations, predicting the evolution of flow data, and offering a holistic understanding of urban dynamics and their interconnections. The model enhances decision-making processes, supports evidence-based planning and design, fosters integrated development strategies, and enables the development of more efficient, resilient, and sustainable urban environments. This research advances both the theoretical and practical dimensions of AI-driven, environmentally sustainable urban development by operationalizing GenAI and FMs within UDT frameworks. It provides sophisticated tools and valuable insights for urban planners, designers, policymakers, and researchers to address the complexities of modern cities and accelerate the transition towards sustainable urban futures.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":34434,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Science and Ecotechnology","volume":"24 ","pages":"Article 100526"},"PeriodicalIF":14.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143306924","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Single-cell protein production from CO2 and electricity with a recirculating anaerobic-aerobic bioprocess","authors":"Zeyan Pan ,&nbsp;Yuhan Guo ,&nbsp;Weihe Rong ,&nbsp;Sheng Wang ,&nbsp;Kai Cui ,&nbsp;Wenfang Cai ,&nbsp;Zhihui Shi ,&nbsp;Xiaona Hu ,&nbsp;Guokun Wang ,&nbsp;Kun Guo","doi":"10.1016/j.ese.2025.100525","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ese.2025.100525","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Microbial electrosynthesis (MES) represents a promising approach for converting CO₂ into organic chemicals. However, its industrial application is hindered by low-value products, such as acetate and methane, and insufficient productivity. To address these limitations, coupling acetate production via MES with microbial upgrading to higher-value compounds offers a viable solution. Here we show an integrated reactor that recirculates a cell-free medium between an MES reactor hosting anaerobic homoacetogens (<em>Acetobacterium</em>) and a continuously stirred tank bioreactor hosting aerobic acetate-utilizing bacteria (<em>Alcaligenes</em>) for efficient single-cell protein (SCP) production from CO₂ and electricity. The reactor achieved a maximum cell dry weight (CDW) of 17.4 g L⁻¹, with an average production rate of 1.5 g L⁻¹ d⁻¹. The protein content of the biomass reached 74% of the dry weight. Moreover, the integrated design significantly reduced wastewater generation, mitigated product inhibition, and enhanced SCP production. These results demonstrate the potential of this integrated reactor for the efficient and sustainable production of high-value bioproducts from CO₂ and electricity using acetate as a key intermediate.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":34434,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Science and Ecotechnology","volume":"24 ","pages":"Article 100525"},"PeriodicalIF":14.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11787703/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143081021","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Causal-inference machine learning reveals the drivers of China's 2022 ozone rebound","authors":"Lin Wang ,&nbsp;Baihua Chen ,&nbsp;Jingyi Ouyang ,&nbsp;Yanshu Mu ,&nbsp;Ling Zhen ,&nbsp;Lin Yang ,&nbsp;Wei Xu ,&nbsp;Lina Tang","doi":"10.1016/j.ese.2025.100524","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ese.2025.100524","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Ground-level ozone concentrations rebounded significantly across China in 2022, challenging air quality management and public health. Identifying the drivers of this rebound is crucial for designing effective mitigation strategies. Commonly used methods, such as chemical transport models and machine learning, provide valuable insights but face limitations—chemical transport models are computationally intensive, while machine learning often fails to address confounding factors or establish causality. Here we show that elevated temperatures and increased solar radiation, as primary meteorological drivers, collectively account for 57 % of the total ozone increase, based on an integrated analysis of ground-based monitoring data, satellite observations, and meteorological reanalysis information using explainable machine learning and causal inference techniques. Compared to the year 2021, 90 % of the stations reported an increase in the Formaldehyde to Nitrogen ratio, implying a growing sensitivity of ozone formation to nitrogen oxide levels. These findings highlight the significant causal role of meteorological changes in the ozone rebound, urging the adoption of targeted ozone mitigation strategies under climate warming, particularly through varied regional strategies that consider existing anthropogenic emission levels and the prospective increase in biogenic volatile organic compounds. This identification of causal relationships in air pollution dynamics can support data-driven and accurate decision-making.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":34434,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Science and Ecotechnology","volume":"24 ","pages":"Article 100524"},"PeriodicalIF":14.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11786889/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143080946","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Molecular dynamics of photosynthetic electron flow in a biophotovoltaic system","authors":"Jianqi Yuan ,&nbsp;Jens Appel ,&nbsp;Kirstin Gutekunst ,&nbsp;Bin Lai ,&nbsp;Jens Olaf Krömer","doi":"10.1016/j.ese.2024.100519","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ese.2024.100519","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Biophotovoltaics (BPV) represents an innovative biohybrid technology that couples electrochemistry with oxygenic photosynthetic microbes to harness solar energy and convert it into electricity. Central to BPV systems is the ability of microbes to perform extracellular electron transfer (EET), utilizing an anode as an external electron sink. This process simultaneously serves as an electron sink and enhances the efficiency of water photolysis compared to conventional electrochemical water splitting. However, optimizing BPV systems has been hindered by a limited understanding of EET pathways and their impacts on cellular physiology. Here we show photosynthetic electron flows in <em>Synechocystis</em> sp. PCC 6803 cultivated in a ferricyanide-mediated BPV system. By monitoring carbon fixation rates and photosynthetic oxygen exchange, we reveal that EET does not significantly affect cell growth, respiration, carbon fixation, or photosystem II efficiency. However, EET competes for electrons with the flavodiiron protein flv1/3, influencing Mehler-like reactions. Our findings suggest that the ferricyanide mediator facilitates photosynthetic electron extraction from ferredoxins downstream of photosystem I. Additionally, the mediator induces a more reduced plastoquinone pool, an effect independent of EET. At very high ferricyanide concentrations, the electron transport chain exhibits responses resembling the impact of trace cyanide. These insights provide a molecular-level understanding of EET pathways in <em>Synechocystis</em> within BPV systems, offering a foundation for the future refinement of BPV technologies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":34434,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Science and Ecotechnology","volume":"23 ","pages":"Article 100519"},"PeriodicalIF":14.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11732479/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142984984","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Insect farming: A bioeconomy-based opportunity to revalorize plastic wastes","authors":"Juan C. Sanchez-Hernandez ,&nbsp;Mallavarapu Megharaj","doi":"10.1016/j.ese.2024.100521","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ese.2024.100521","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Managing plastic waste is one of the greatest challenges humanity faces in the coming years. Current strategies—landfilling, incineration, and recycling—remain insufficient or pose significant environmental concerns, failing to address the growing volume of plastic residues discharged into the environment. Recently, increasing attention has focused on the potential of certain insect larvae species to chew, consume, and partially biodegrade synthetic polymers such as polystyrene and polyethylene, offering novel biotechnological opportunities for plastic waste management. However, insect-assisted plastic depolymerization is incomplete, leaving significant amounts of microplastics in the frass (or manure), limiting its use as a soil amendment. In this perspective, we propose a novel two-step bioconversion system to overcome these limitations, using insects to sustainably manage plastic waste while revalorizing its by-products (frass). The first step involves pyrolyzing microplastic-containing frass from mealworms (<em>Tenebrio molitor</em> larvae) fed on plastic-rich diets to produce biochar with enhanced adsorptive properties. The second stage integrates this biochar into the entomocomposting of organic residues, such as food waste, using black soldier fly (<em>Hermetia illucens</em>) larvae to produce nutrient-rich substrates enriched with carbon and nitrogen. This integrated system offers a potential framework for large-scale industrial applications, contributing to the bioeconomy by addressing both plastic waste and organic residue management. We critically examine the advantages and limitations of the proposed system based on current literature on biochar technology and entomocomposting. Key challenges and research opportunities are identified, particularly concerning the physiological and toxicological processes involved, to guide future efforts aimed at ensuring the scalability and sustainability of this innovative approach.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":34434,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Science and Ecotechnology","volume":"23 ","pages":"Article 100521"},"PeriodicalIF":14.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11758129/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143048096","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}