Reviews in Environmental Science and Bio/Technology最新文献

Grape is one of the most well-known fruits worldwide, being transformed into distinct food products, one of which is wine. A significantly large portion of grape production is exclusively destined for winemaking which, as an industrial process, produces significant amounts of by-products. Grape pomace is considered the major by-product of winemaking and consists of skins, seeds and stems that are left behind after the stage of grapes’ pressing. According to the Waste Framework Directive (Directive 2008/98/EC) of the European Parliament, “waste prevention should be the first priority of waste management and re-use and material recycling should be preferred to energy recovery from waste”. This review aims to approach the recent advances over the valorization of grape pomace as a value-adding material, exploring its potential uses in the industry. The main methods for this purpose are discussed, including traditional methods (such as distillates production, animal feed, and soil fertilizer), its use as a technological aid in different industrial processes (e.g., adsorption, immobilization, food packaging and cosmetics), its addition in food products, highlighting its potential effects on physicochemical, functional and sensory attributes of these products, and as a raw material for bioenergy production. The large number of strategies that have been employed for the possible use of grape pomace show its high revalorization potential, with studies being conducted on several different food products of different categories, such as dairy, meat, fish and bakery products or even wine itself. The main positive effect of this addition consists the increase of the antioxidant activity of the medium, contributing towards enhanced shelf-life, both microbiologically and physicochemically. Given the fact that a linear production model is not satisfactory for sustainable development and focus has been shifted towards circular models, it appears that grape pomace consists a major value-adding component that can promote such economy schemes, as it can be reutilized in numerous ways across a number of industrial categories, including the winery that it came from. However, this study highlighted also the absence of a comprehensive legislative framework covering the addition of grape pomace in foods, of studies analyzing completely the cost of grape pomace revalorization, and of specific research on green/food-grade extraction methods of valuable compounds from grape pomace.

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Pesticides, in various forms, are used for the protection of crops. However, their residues are detrimental to human, animal, and environmental health. Therefore, their detection, monitoring, and control have gained prominent research focus. While most conventional detection techniques demand sophisticated analytical instrumentation, longer processing times, and skill sets, microfluidic devices are increasingly being recognized, given their inherent benefits of miniaturization, lesser sample requirements, portability, and ease of integration, in addition to sensitivity and selectivity. This review provides advances in state-of-the-art microfluidic devices for pesticide detection applications. While key findings of recent studies have been highlighted to better explain their widening application range, the article also provides information on fundamental aspects of fluid flow in microfluidic channels, device fabrication, and system considerations. As a versatile technology, there is ample scope for their integration with other sensing systems, all of which are need-specific. This work also throws light into the techno-economic feasibility, research needs, and prospects for the commercialization of microfluidic systems for pesticide detection applications.

Indian Railways (IR) is the third largest in the world and an economic transportation mode in India. A recent report by the Central Pollution Control Board, Government of India revealed that most of the IR stations were unable to comply with the norms of solid waste management especially on treatment of plastic waste. Hence, this study is aimed to explore potential plastic waste resources/generation across Indian Railway Units (IRUs) and to recommend eco-smart energy solutions to improve plastic waste management at IRUs. Significant problems related to collection, segregation, and treatment of railway mixed plastic waste were addressed. Recent initiatives by IR to eradicate the plastic pollution in IRUs were highlighted in the study. Eco-smart solutions such as financial rewarding system, concession in railway ticket price, priority reservation during booking of railway tickets, converting the unsegregated waste into valuable products of railway platform tiles, pavements, and bricks were recommended. Finally, the study provides a comprehensive perspective of plastic waste to energy conversion in terms of plasto-oil, plasto-char, and plasto-gas products.

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The emission from power plants highly contributes to the increase of CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere. Enhancing the utilization of renewable energy and improving energy efficiency are widely considered to be a key to reduce emissions, however, certain solutions need time to be implemented. Carbon Capture and Storage is considered as a crucial solution for the situation that contributes to reduce the ultimate emission. Most studies have dealt with the current available technologies such as pre-combustion capture, post-combustion capture, and oxyfuel combustion. Several challenges of Carbon Capture technologies are being addressed without being given more attention to the optimum solution. Although post-combustion capture is considered one of the best options to be retrofitted to a power plant, the challenges of the processes and the possible solutions have not been dealt with in depth. This review article investigates the three techniques (pre-combustion, post-combustion, and oxyfuel combustion) to identify the best option to be used for CO₂ capture from the power plant. The gap in the field of decarbonization for researchers and policy makers has been identified and a future roadmap has therefore been proposed. Post-combustion capture is the best option for carbon capture from power plants. Solvent selection, process configuration, and process emissions to environment need to be resolved for better capture results. Three future scenarios are hereby proposed, the recirculation of the clean flue gas, synergistic effect of different solvents or replacement of stripper unit with ultrasound technique.

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An increasing attention to biomining technologies has emerged in the mining industry as a result of stricter environmental regulations and economic concerns to process ores with more complex mineralogy having high sulfur and carbon content. The application of bacteria and archaea in biomining has been broadly investigated. Nevertheless, to overcome the present challenges in biomining, there is a potential opportunity for fungi to be employed for the treatment of double/refractory sulfidic ores. This review, for the first time, provides a detailed investigation of the reported fungi used as biological engines to alter numerous sulfur and carbon matrices, including low and high-rank coals, organic and inorganic sulfur, as well as sulfide and carbon minerals. This study illustrates the potential applicability of fungi in biomining technologies, and summarizes microorganisms that have been successfully used with different sulfur and carbon sources. The fundamentals of fungi and their applications have been discussed in detail. Future directions that require further research to foster biomining technologies assisted by fungi have also been provided.

Water quality monitoring and modeling are vital in improving the aquatic ecosystem's health and surroundings. The advancements in computer science and its integration with mathematics have resulted in the development of divergent algorithms and models for evaluating/predicting water quality and simulating the fate/transport of environmental contaminants. In this paper, four widely used statistical methods/algorithms, viz. (1) topological method, (2) multivariate statistics, (3) geostatistics, and (4) information entropy method, have been discussed and assessed. The assessment is based on its application merits and de-merits in recent environmental/water resources projects to advocate its suitability and flexibility in water quality analysis. The assessment parameters of suitability taken into account are pollutant source identification and classification. The reviewed methods argue for river water quality improvement through restoration and pollution control plans, simultaneously trying to minimize the number of sampling locations. Further, the five most widely used WQ models, viz. MIKE, AQUATOX, SWAT, IBER, and TELEMAC have been compared based on their mode of access (paid/freely available), input data requirement, output, and applicability for specific scenarios (e.g., oil spillage, contaminant transport, etc.). This paper is the first of its kind that compares and reviews IBER software and other water quality modeling/analysis software. The review is constructed to guide the reader in selecting a particular method and software/model in various scenarios. The study of the water quality models will also help in selecting the most accurate model to uncover the distribution of biochemical contaminants in a water body and its prediction to generate risk maps.

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Remediation of persistent organic pollutants in soil especially total petroleum hydrocarbon (TPH) is of global concern due to its toxicity and health implications. Soil flushing has been considered a promising technique among in-situ technologies for treating non-volatile TPH-contaminated soils because it weakens the interaction between hydrocarbons and soil particles to enhance pollutant mobilization efficiency. It is still challenging to optimize the soil flushing treatment because the overall efficacy significantly depends on the environmental characteristics of the subsurface. Advanced soil flushing strategies (e.g., integrating with oxidation, air sparging, and nanoparticles) and novel flushing solutions are discussed to overcome the limitations of the existing process during the remediation of soil systems contaminated with recalcitrant TPH. The flushed-out toxic chemicals comprise a large amount of waste solution, creating another pollutant. The present review summarizes the enhanced soil flushing techniques, and critically discusses their advantages and disadvantages, and addresses follow-up remediation of the generated wash solution containing toxic substances for its safe discharge. Fundamental information on soil flushing is discussed to overcome the challenges encountered during field application such as poor efficiency, high operating cost, and a large amount of generated secondary wastewater.

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Marine ecosystem is a rich energy reservoir supporting diverse lifeforms. Filamentous fungi colonize various substrates of marine ecosystems in the form of saprotrophs, parasites and symbionts. Recent advancements in molecular methods unravelled diverse fungal communities dominating marine ecosystems, the majority of which belonged to genera Aspergillus, Penicillium, Trichoderma, Cladosporium and Fusarium of phylum Ascomycota. Prolonged exposure to hostile environments evolved marine fungi with adaptive mechanisms to tolerate high hygroscopic pressure, salinity, and temperatures. Besides, fungal symbiotic associations and biofilm formation over sessile substrate provide additional stability by facilitating nutritional balance and defence mechanisms. The synthesis of novel metabolites and extracellular enzymes shows the potential application in decomposition, mineralization, biomass production and nutrient cycling within marine ecosystems. Extracellular matrix (ECM) embedding fungal biofilm acts as a protective barrier against the hazardous effect of environmental pollutants. Coordinated expression of several catabolic genes such as lcc, LiP, MnP, CYP and enzymes regulate the degradation pathway of organic pollutants such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), organochlorines, phthalates, and pharmaceuticals. Further, the presence of metal-chelating metallothionein (MT) gene, and dense mycelial mat within biofilm regulate biosorption and biotransformation of inorganic pollutants. The present article extensively comprehends the diversity and distribution of filamentous fungi associated with different parts of the marine ecosystem. Moreover, the role of filamentous fungi in pollutant remediation and application of gene-editing methods in developing genetically modified strains for enhanced remediation has been briefly discussed in the review.

Introducing the principles of circular economy into the concrete industry would significantly contribute to the sustainability of this sector. Even though recycling ranks below waste elimination, the generation of concrete waste is inevitable, and modern recycling strategies cannot efficiently tackle waste concrete fines (WCF) that represent an enormous environmental burden. Inspired by recent advances in self-healing concretes and biocementation of loose soil, we propose harnessing bacteria for bonding WCF to form artificial rocks that could be used as construction material. The devised technology brings many obstacles that can be tackled based on extensive research offered in this critical review, focused mostly on different bacterial metabolic pathways resulting in calcite precipitation and their environmental impacts. The most frequently exploited pathway in materials engineering, ureolysis, was employed to demonstrate the technical feasibility of WCF recycling using Sporosarcina pasteurii. Despite promising results of this demonstration, an alternative approach must be sought to reduce the negative environmental impact associated with the use of ureolytic bacteria as it exceeds potential benefits. Such an approach could be based on the use of by-products from other industries to replace laboratory-grade chemicals, or on utilization of different metabolic pathways, such as carbonic anhydrase or methane oxidation.

The sustainable management of the environment and crop production in modern agriculture involves dealing with challenges from climate change, environmental pollution, depletion of natural resources, as well as pressure to cope with dependence on agricultural inputs. Balancing crop productivity with environmental sustainability is one of the main challenges for agriculture worldwide. The emergence of weeds resistant to synthetic herbicides generates huge economic losses, so unconventional weed control strategies, especially those based on ecological principles, are very much needed in modern agriculture. Incorporating a natural eco-friendly approach—allelopathy—as a tool in an integrated weed control plan by growing specific crops or spraying fields with extracts containing allelopathic compounds can significantly reduce the use of herbicides. Allelopathy is considered a multi-dimensional phenomenon occurring constantly in natural and anthropogenic ecosystems, by which one organism produces biochemicals that influence the growth, survival, development, and reproduction of other organisms. The objective of this systematic literature review is to present a comprehensive overview of allelopathy, define this phenomenon, and classify allelochemicals. This paper also discusses and highlights recent advances, ongoing research, and prospects on plant allelopathy management practices applied in agriculture, and the underlying allelopathic mechanisms. The review suggested the holistic view of some allelochemicals as an ecological approach to integrated weed control and is an important contribution to future research directions of multidisciplinary programs, chemoinformatic tools, and novel biotechnology methods to plant breeding.