Pub Date : 2024-04-10DOI: 10.1038/s44286-024-00057-x
Thomas Dursch
{"title":"Upping the bounds for charged membranes","authors":"Thomas Dursch","doi":"10.1038/s44286-024-00057-x","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44286-024-00057-x","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":501699,"journal":{"name":"Nature Chemical Engineering","volume":"1 4","pages":"264-264"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140544630","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-04-04DOI: 10.1038/s44286-024-00048-y
Yuan Yao
The carbon footprints of petrochemicals have large uncertainties, challenging decarbonization efforts. Now, a study identifies the main uncertainty sources and strategies for improving the accuracy of greenhouse gas emissions estimations and reporting for petrochemicals.
{"title":"Mitigating uncertainties enables more accurate greenhouse gas accounting for petrochemicals","authors":"Yuan Yao","doi":"10.1038/s44286-024-00048-y","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44286-024-00048-y","url":null,"abstract":"The carbon footprints of petrochemicals have large uncertainties, challenging decarbonization efforts. Now, a study identifies the main uncertainty sources and strategies for improving the accuracy of greenhouse gas emissions estimations and reporting for petrochemicals.","PeriodicalId":501699,"journal":{"name":"Nature Chemical Engineering","volume":"1 4","pages":"273-274"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140544578","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-04-03DOI: 10.1038/s44286-024-00053-1
Boelo Schuur
Liquid–liquid extraction is an indirect separation technique requiring solvent regeneration, and if a back-extraction is needed, it typically reduces the concentration. Now, using an electrochemical reaction, the concentration can be pumped up to 16 times the feed concentration.
{"title":"Electrochemical concentration pumping in liquid–liquid extractions","authors":"Boelo Schuur","doi":"10.1038/s44286-024-00053-1","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44286-024-00053-1","url":null,"abstract":"Liquid–liquid extraction is an indirect separation technique requiring solvent regeneration, and if a back-extraction is needed, it typically reduces the concentration. Now, using an electrochemical reaction, the concentration can be pumped up to 16 times the feed concentration.","PeriodicalId":501699,"journal":{"name":"Nature Chemical Engineering","volume":"1 4","pages":"277-278"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140544575","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-04-03DOI: 10.1038/s44286-024-00056-y
Viola Becattini, Stefan Wiemer, Marco Mazzotti
The existential threat posed by the climate crisis calls for urgent solutions to manage hard-to-abate and unavoidable CO2 emissions. This Comment shows, by example, the key role that scientists can play in launching pioneering pilot projects, leveraging their research, systems understanding and networks, and thus educating the next generation of climate innovators.
{"title":"Accelerating the climate transition through scientist-led CO2 management pilot projects","authors":"Viola Becattini, Stefan Wiemer, Marco Mazzotti","doi":"10.1038/s44286-024-00056-y","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44286-024-00056-y","url":null,"abstract":"The existential threat posed by the climate crisis calls for urgent solutions to manage hard-to-abate and unavoidable CO2 emissions. This Comment shows, by example, the key role that scientists can play in launching pioneering pilot projects, leveraging their research, systems understanding and networks, and thus educating the next generation of climate innovators.","PeriodicalId":501699,"journal":{"name":"Nature Chemical Engineering","volume":"1 4","pages":"267-269"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s44286-024-00056-y.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140544612","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-04-02DOI: 10.1038/s44286-024-00046-0
Gerd Mutschke, Tom Weier
Electric fields offer an easy means to manipulate liquid metal droplets. Now, directed droplet transfer between immersed electrodes is achieved in an alkaline electrolyte without electrical short circuit.
{"title":"Directed transfer of liquid metal droplets between electrodes","authors":"Gerd Mutschke, Tom Weier","doi":"10.1038/s44286-024-00046-0","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44286-024-00046-0","url":null,"abstract":"Electric fields offer an easy means to manipulate liquid metal droplets. Now, directed droplet transfer between immersed electrodes is achieved in an alkaline electrolyte without electrical short circuit.","PeriodicalId":501699,"journal":{"name":"Nature Chemical Engineering","volume":"1 4","pages":"275-276"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140544587","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-04-02DOI: 10.1038/s44286-024-00054-0
Ronghui Wu, Po-Chun Hsu
Properly maintaining the skin temperature is critical for wound healing, especially outdoors. Now, a lightweight and skin-friendly wound dressing is reported that can continuously cool the skin without energy input.
{"title":"Better cooling for faster healing","authors":"Ronghui Wu, Po-Chun Hsu","doi":"10.1038/s44286-024-00054-0","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44286-024-00054-0","url":null,"abstract":"Properly maintaining the skin temperature is critical for wound healing, especially outdoors. Now, a lightweight and skin-friendly wound dressing is reported that can continuously cool the skin without energy input.","PeriodicalId":501699,"journal":{"name":"Nature Chemical Engineering","volume":"1 4","pages":"279-280"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140544580","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The process of wound healing is sensitive to various factors of the local environment, including temperature, humidity and sterility. However, due to lack of efficient thermal regulation in existing wound dressings, the perturbed local environment and oxidative stress caused by an increased wound temperature under outdoor sunlight inevitably impacts wound healing. Here we demonstrate a daytime radiative cooling dressing based on a polyamide 6/silk fibroin bilayer that reduces the thermal load for skin wounds under sunlight illumination. The mid-infrared transparent polyamide 6 and the biocompatible silk fibroin together endow a high mid-infrared emissivity (~0.94) and sunlight reflectivity (~0.96), thus achieving a temperature of ~7 °C below ambient under direct sunlight. When used for repairing mouse skin full-thickness injuries under sunlight, we observed an accelerated wound healing rate compared with that of commercial dressings. This work therefore offers a promising strategy for passive temperature regulation to accelerate wound healing under sunlight. It is essential to develop new dressing designs for wounds that can maintain ideal thermal comfort even under high temperatures in outdoor conditions. Now, a daytime radiative cooling dressing based on a polyamide 6/silk fibroin bilayer is demonstrated to accelerate wound healing by reducing the thermal load for skin wounds under sunlight illumination.
{"title":"Daytime radiative cooling dressings for accelerating wound healing under sunlight","authors":"Qian Zhang, Chao Qi, Xueyang Wang, Bin Zhu, Wei Li, Xingfang Xiao, Hanyu Fu, Song Hu, Shining Zhu, Weilin Xu, Jia Zhu","doi":"10.1038/s44286-024-00050-4","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44286-024-00050-4","url":null,"abstract":"The process of wound healing is sensitive to various factors of the local environment, including temperature, humidity and sterility. However, due to lack of efficient thermal regulation in existing wound dressings, the perturbed local environment and oxidative stress caused by an increased wound temperature under outdoor sunlight inevitably impacts wound healing. Here we demonstrate a daytime radiative cooling dressing based on a polyamide 6/silk fibroin bilayer that reduces the thermal load for skin wounds under sunlight illumination. The mid-infrared transparent polyamide 6 and the biocompatible silk fibroin together endow a high mid-infrared emissivity (~0.94) and sunlight reflectivity (~0.96), thus achieving a temperature of ~7 °C below ambient under direct sunlight. When used for repairing mouse skin full-thickness injuries under sunlight, we observed an accelerated wound healing rate compared with that of commercial dressings. This work therefore offers a promising strategy for passive temperature regulation to accelerate wound healing under sunlight. It is essential to develop new dressing designs for wounds that can maintain ideal thermal comfort even under high temperatures in outdoor conditions. Now, a daytime radiative cooling dressing based on a polyamide 6/silk fibroin bilayer is demonstrated to accelerate wound healing by reducing the thermal load for skin wounds under sunlight illumination.","PeriodicalId":501699,"journal":{"name":"Nature Chemical Engineering","volume":"1 4","pages":"301-310"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140379509","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-03-26DOI: 10.1038/s44286-024-00047-z
Luke Cullen, Fanran Meng, Rick Lupton, Jonathan M. Cullen
Uncertainties in greenhouse gas emissions estimates for petrochemical production have lacked quantification globally, impacting emissions reporting and decarbonization policymaking. Here we analyze cradle-to-gate emissions of 81 chemicals at 37,000 facilities worldwide, assessing 6 uncertainty sources. The results estimate a 34% uncertainty in total global emissions of 1.9 ± 0.6 Gt of CO2-equivalent emissions for 2020, and 15–40% uncertainties across most petrochemicals analyzed. The largest uncertainties stem from the inability to assign specific production processes to facilities owing to data limitations. Uncertain data on feedstock production and off-site energy generation contribute substantially, while on-site fuel combustion and chemical reactions have smaller roles. Allocation method choices for co-products are generally insignificant. Prioritizing facility-level process specification in data collection for just 20% of facilities could reduce global uncertainty by 80%. This underscores the necessity of quantifying uncertainty in petrochemical greenhouse gas emissions globally and outlines priorities for improved reporting. The dataset generated offers independent emissions factor estimates based on facility-specific information for 81 chemicals, supporting future analyses. Robust decarbonization strategies for the petrochemical industry are hampered by many sources of uncertainty in greenhouse gas emissions estimates. Here the authors quantify and prioritize uncertainty sources, finding that the most significant factor is the lack of detailed data about specific production processes used in chemical facilities.
{"title":"Reducing uncertainties in greenhouse gas emissions from chemical production","authors":"Luke Cullen, Fanran Meng, Rick Lupton, Jonathan M. Cullen","doi":"10.1038/s44286-024-00047-z","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44286-024-00047-z","url":null,"abstract":"Uncertainties in greenhouse gas emissions estimates for petrochemical production have lacked quantification globally, impacting emissions reporting and decarbonization policymaking. Here we analyze cradle-to-gate emissions of 81 chemicals at 37,000 facilities worldwide, assessing 6 uncertainty sources. The results estimate a 34% uncertainty in total global emissions of 1.9 ± 0.6 Gt of CO2-equivalent emissions for 2020, and 15–40% uncertainties across most petrochemicals analyzed. The largest uncertainties stem from the inability to assign specific production processes to facilities owing to data limitations. Uncertain data on feedstock production and off-site energy generation contribute substantially, while on-site fuel combustion and chemical reactions have smaller roles. Allocation method choices for co-products are generally insignificant. Prioritizing facility-level process specification in data collection for just 20% of facilities could reduce global uncertainty by 80%. This underscores the necessity of quantifying uncertainty in petrochemical greenhouse gas emissions globally and outlines priorities for improved reporting. The dataset generated offers independent emissions factor estimates based on facility-specific information for 81 chemicals, supporting future analyses. Robust decarbonization strategies for the petrochemical industry are hampered by many sources of uncertainty in greenhouse gas emissions estimates. Here the authors quantify and prioritize uncertainty sources, finding that the most significant factor is the lack of detailed data about specific production processes used in chemical facilities.","PeriodicalId":501699,"journal":{"name":"Nature Chemical Engineering","volume":"1 4","pages":"311-322"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s44286-024-00047-z.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140380995","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-03-25DOI: 10.1038/s44286-024-00049-x
Stephen R. Cotty, Aderiyike Faniyan, Johannes Elbert, Xiao Su
Electrochemical separations are powerful platforms for the sustainable recovery of critical elements, environmental remediation and downstream processing. However, the recent development of electroseparations has primarily focused on heterogeneous adsorbents, which face the challenge of intermittent electroswing operation. Here we present a redox-mediated electrochemical liquid–liquid extraction separation platform that translates selective single-site binding to a fully continuous separation scheme. A redox-active extractant is molecularly designed with controllable hydrophobicity to maximize organic phase retention. The redox flow design enables fully electrified continuous operation with no external chemical input, achieving the selective recovery of precious metals from multicomponent streams. We demonstrate an atomic efficiency of over 90% and over 100:1 selectivity for practical critical metal leach streams, and 16-fold up-concentration for gold and platinum group metals from varied feedstocks including electronic waste, catalytic converter waste and mining streams. Our work is envisioned as a pathway towards a broader class of industrially applicable liquid–liquid extraction-based electrochemical separations. The recovery of gold and platinum group metals from sources like electronic waste, catalytic converter waste and mining streams remains challenging. Now, an electrochemically mediated liquid–liquid extraction process leverages the selectivity of redox-active extractants for the selective recovery of precious and critical metals including gold and platinum group metals from diverse feedstocks.
{"title":"Redox-mediated electrochemical liquid–liquid extraction for selective metal recovery","authors":"Stephen R. Cotty, Aderiyike Faniyan, Johannes Elbert, Xiao Su","doi":"10.1038/s44286-024-00049-x","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44286-024-00049-x","url":null,"abstract":"Electrochemical separations are powerful platforms for the sustainable recovery of critical elements, environmental remediation and downstream processing. However, the recent development of electroseparations has primarily focused on heterogeneous adsorbents, which face the challenge of intermittent electroswing operation. Here we present a redox-mediated electrochemical liquid–liquid extraction separation platform that translates selective single-site binding to a fully continuous separation scheme. A redox-active extractant is molecularly designed with controllable hydrophobicity to maximize organic phase retention. The redox flow design enables fully electrified continuous operation with no external chemical input, achieving the selective recovery of precious metals from multicomponent streams. We demonstrate an atomic efficiency of over 90% and over 100:1 selectivity for practical critical metal leach streams, and 16-fold up-concentration for gold and platinum group metals from varied feedstocks including electronic waste, catalytic converter waste and mining streams. Our work is envisioned as a pathway towards a broader class of industrially applicable liquid–liquid extraction-based electrochemical separations. The recovery of gold and platinum group metals from sources like electronic waste, catalytic converter waste and mining streams remains challenging. Now, an electrochemically mediated liquid–liquid extraction process leverages the selectivity of redox-active extractants for the selective recovery of precious and critical metals including gold and platinum group metals from diverse feedstocks.","PeriodicalId":501699,"journal":{"name":"Nature Chemical Engineering","volume":"1 4","pages":"281-292"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s44286-024-00049-x.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140382919","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-03-20DOI: 10.1038/s44286-024-00045-1
Yahua He, Jing You, Michael D. Dickey, Xiaolin Wang
Droplets of liquid metals attached to an anode in an electrochemical cell move toward the cathode since electrochemical oxidation lowers the interfacial tension of the metal. When the droplet reaches the cathode, it wraps around the cathode but does not touch it despite the electrostatic attraction between the positively charged liquid metal and the negatively charged cathode. The combination of electrochemical oxidation of the liquid-metal anode and hydrogen production on the cathode prevents contact, thus avoiding a short circuit between the two electrodes. Consequently, the liquid metal continues to flow toward the cathode and surrounds it until finally the metal completely detaches from the anode and transfers to the cathode. Such manipulation depends on the distance between the cathode and the liquid metal; only the closest liquid-metal droplet will detach and transfer. During this process, the liquid can adopt surprising shapes that resemble tentacles. We demonstrate and characterize the unique ability to detach and transfer liquid metal using a low applied voltage. Positively charged anodes should short circuit when they are brought into contact with a cathode. The authors demonstrate that a liquid-metal anode can naturally flow toward the cathode, completely surround it and ultimately transfer to the cathode without short circuiting in an electrochemical cell.
{"title":"Liquid-metal transfer from an anode to a cathode without short circuiting","authors":"Yahua He, Jing You, Michael D. Dickey, Xiaolin Wang","doi":"10.1038/s44286-024-00045-1","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44286-024-00045-1","url":null,"abstract":"Droplets of liquid metals attached to an anode in an electrochemical cell move toward the cathode since electrochemical oxidation lowers the interfacial tension of the metal. When the droplet reaches the cathode, it wraps around the cathode but does not touch it despite the electrostatic attraction between the positively charged liquid metal and the negatively charged cathode. The combination of electrochemical oxidation of the liquid-metal anode and hydrogen production on the cathode prevents contact, thus avoiding a short circuit between the two electrodes. Consequently, the liquid metal continues to flow toward the cathode and surrounds it until finally the metal completely detaches from the anode and transfers to the cathode. Such manipulation depends on the distance between the cathode and the liquid metal; only the closest liquid-metal droplet will detach and transfer. During this process, the liquid can adopt surprising shapes that resemble tentacles. We demonstrate and characterize the unique ability to detach and transfer liquid metal using a low applied voltage. Positively charged anodes should short circuit when they are brought into contact with a cathode. The authors demonstrate that a liquid-metal anode can naturally flow toward the cathode, completely surround it and ultimately transfer to the cathode without short circuiting in an electrochemical cell.","PeriodicalId":501699,"journal":{"name":"Nature Chemical Engineering","volume":"1 4","pages":"293-300"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140225629","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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