Emissions from vehicles can be measured on the road or in laboratories using dynamometers that simulate the forces that a vehicle is subject to while driving on the road. In the light-duty vehicle regulations, only roller-type dynamometers are allowed. For hub-type dynamometers, due to the direct connection of the dynamometers to the wheel hubs, additional parameters that are used are rotational mass, dynamic wheel radius, and the tire force−slip relationship. Following up on an experimental study which showed that equivalent emission results can be achieved between roller- and hub-type dynamometers, this work presents and evaluates methods to determine parameters used by a hub-type dynamometer for mimicking roller-type dynamometer behavior. It also discusses methods to determine the parameters to simulate specific road conditions or when using only a hub-type dynamometer. The results show that using a constant dynamic radius for each wheel and a linear tire force−slip relationship is... [more]

The issue of shifting loads from road to rail is always vivid when it comes to reducing CO2 emissions from transport. Practically not every load transported by road vehicles over a long distance can be transferred to rail. Additionally, the potential of the railway lines is limited, which means that the network is not able to accept huge amounts of loads from road transport. In the article, attention was paid to the typology of cargo susceptible to changing the means of transport. The article discusses the factors influencing the real possibility of CO2 reduction by changing the mode of transport. The analysis and calculation example of the selected region in Poland is presented.

From a global perspective, carbon emissions are a global problem that needs to be solved urgently. At present, 61% of countries have committed to achieving net zero emissions. Compared with industry and construction, the transportation sector has become the focus and challenge for countries to achieve carbon neutrality due to the characteristics of strong mobility, scattered emission sources, and complex social behaviors. Therefore, the issue of carbon emissions in the transportation industry has become the focus of academic attention. This paper first calculates the carbon emission efficiency (CEE) of the regional transportation industry through the super-efficiency SBM model and then evaluates its regional differentiation characteristics through the Theil index, which has important practical significance for reducing regional carbon emissions. The results show that the national transportation CEE average value is 0.612, a relatively low level. The spatial distribution of China’s tran... [more]

Household consumption has become an important field of carbon dioxide emissions. Urban−rural disparity in the household carbon emissions (HCEs) of residents and their influencing factors are relevant to HCE reduction. Taking Fujian as the study area, the LMDI and SDA models were used to analyze the effects of influencing factors for the direct household carbon emissions (DHCEs) and indirect carbon emissions (IHCEs) of urban and rural residents from 2006 to 2018. The HCEs continue to rise, approximately 65% from the IHCEs in 2017, and urban areas occupied 67% in 2018. The gap between urban and rural per capita HCEs is narrowing. In 2017, approximately 75% of urban per capita HCEs came from the IHCEs, while the per capita DHCEs’ occupation exceeded the IHCEs in rural areas. Per capita consumption expenditure has the largest positive effect on the DHCEs and IHCEs in urban and rural areas. With the urbanization process, the inhibition effect of rural DHCEs is larger than the positive effec... [more]

Nuclear technology has multiple applications that are fundamental to our daily life [...]

Among the solutions that make it possible to reduce CO2 emissions in the transport sector, particularly in urban traffic conditions, are hybrid vehicles. The share of driving performed in electric mode for hybrid vehicles is highly dependent on motion resistance. There are different methods for determining the motion resistance function during chassis dynamometer testing, leading to different test results. Therefore, the main objective of this study was to determine the effect of the chassis dynamometer load function on the energy demand and CO2 emissions of a full-hybrid passenger car. Emissions tests according to the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC) were carried out on a chassis dynamometer for three different methods of determining the car’s resistance to motion. The study showed that adopting the motion resistance function according to different methods, results in differences in CO2 emissions up to about 35% for the entire cycle. Therefore, the authors suggest that in the case of... [more]

A low-carbon economy is the most important requirement to realize high-quality integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta. Utilizing the following models: a super-efficiency slacks-based measure model, a spatio-temporal correlation model, a bivariate LISA model, a spatial econometric model, and a geographically weighted random forest model, this study measured urban industrial eco-efficiency (IEE) and then analyzed its influencing effects on carbon emission in the Yangtze River Delta from 2000 to 2017. The influencing factors included spatio-temporal correlation intensity, spatio-temporal association type, direct and indirect impacts, and local importance impacts. Findings showed that: (1) The temporal correlation intensity between IEE and scale efficiency (SE) and carbon emissions exhibited an inverted V-shaped variation trend, while the temporal correlation intensity between pure technical efficiency (PTE) and carbon emissions exhibited a W-shaped fluctuation trend. The negati... [more]

This study presents an investigation into the desorption process of pesticides, namely benalaxyl, atrazine, dimethoate, and methomyl, from aqueous solutions in natural Brari clay (Tirana) located at 41°21′14.49″ N and 19° 50′17.74″ E and Dardha clay (Korça) located at 40°31′16.59″ N and 20°49′33.69″ E. The desorption process was fast, where in the first 2 hours of contact, 99.1% of atrazine was desorbed from Brari clay, and 90.1% of atrazine was desorbed from Dardha clay. In addition, in the first 2 hours of contact, 80.3% of benalaxyl was desorbed from pear clay and 79.2% of benalaxyl from Brari clay; 96.2% of methomyl and 81.2% of dimethoate were desorbed. According to the acquired curves, the desorption process began with the dominance of methomyl from Brari clay, followed by dimethoate from Brari clay, dimethoate from Dardha clay, atrazine from Brari clay, benalaxyl from Brari clay, benalaxyl from Dardha clay, and lastly atrazine from Dardha clay. Hence, compared to Dardha clay, le... [more]

Perovskite is of burgeoning interest in catalysis, principally due to such material having high thermal stability, modifiable variability, ferromagnetism, and excellent catalytic performance in peroxomonosulfate (PMS) activation. In this study, the SrCoMn1−xO3 perovskites with different Mn doping were synthesized by a facile sol-gel method for peroxymonosulfate (PMS) activation to degrade Rhodamine B. The obtained SrCo0.5Mn0.5O3 perovskite exhibited the best catalytic efficiency, as Rhodamine B (40 mg/L) was removed completely within 30 min. In the system of SrCo0.5Mn0.5O3−PMS, several reactive species were produced, among which sulfate radicals and the singlet oxygen mainly contributed to Rhodamine B degradation. The relatively high catalytic performance could be attributed to the coupled redox cycle between Mn and Co, and the abundant oxygen vacancies. Moreover, the SrCo0.5Mn0.5O3 catalyst showed excellent stability and reusability, maintaining a high catalytic activity after several... [more]

The demand for critical metals for net-zero technologies, including electric vehicles and wind/solar energy, puts pressure on extraction and recycling processes. As the treatment of solutions is becoming more and more complex and associated with the decreasing concentration of critical metals and the concentration of contaminants increasing, the development of separation techniques is required. Among them, membrane separation has been evaluated for hydrometallurgical processes with similar results to traditional techniques. This work aimed at reviewing the literature on membrane applications to obtain critical metals—lithium (Li), cobalt (Co), and rare earth elements (scandium—Sc, yttrium—Y, lanthanum—La, and neodymium—Nd). The main novelty is that this literature review focuses on the application of membrane techniques in industrial processes, not only water and wastewater treatment. For this, we searched a scientific database for different keywords, and the bibliometric analysis demo... [more]

Wireless mesh networks (WMN) promise to be an effective way to solve the “last mile” access problem on the Internet of Things (IoT) and the key to next-generation wireless networks. The current routing algorithms of WMN are difficult to adapt to complex environments and guarantee the reliable transmission of services. Therefore, this paper proposes a reliable routing algorithm that combines the improved breadth-first search and a graph neural network, namely GraphSAGE. The algorithm consists of two parts: (1) A multi-path routing algorithm based on the improved breadth-first search. This algorithm can continuously iterate link information based on network topology and output all shortest paths. (2) A GraphSAGE-based performance optimization algorithm. This algorithm creates a method to generate network labels for supervised training of GraphSAGE. Then, the network labels and GraphSAGE are used to learn graph features to obtain the value of network performance for each shortest path. Fi... [more]

The use of constructed wetlands (CWs) for wastewater treatment has earned high interest around the world. However, innovations to improve its removal efficiency and adoption have been suggested in the last decades. For instance, the use of ornamental flowering plants (OFP), which make wetland treatment systems more aesthetic and is an option for the production of commercial flowers while the water is cleansed. The objectives of this study were to identify through a bibliometric analysis (2000−2022) the main OFP that have been used in CWs and their functionality as phytoremediators (removal effects), as well as the authors, collaborations, main investigations, and the countries where such investigations have been carried out. To this respect, 10,254 studies on CWs were identified. The United States and China were the leading countries in the use of this eco-technology. Subsequently, regarding the use of OFP, the analysis revealed 92 studies on this matter in which Mexico has three resea... [more]

Carbon sink afforestation (CSA) has become one of the most concerned issues of countries around the world under the background of climate change. The northern forest ecosystem, located in mid- and high latitudes, is a huge terrestrial carbon pool and is very sensitive to climate change. Studying the carbon emission accounting of CSA in northern forests helps clarify the contribution of CSA to forestry carbon sequestration and forecasts the carbon sink effect of forest ecosystems. It is of great significance for the assessment of forest carbon sink and carbon cycling by providing a scientific basis and reference for the development, utilization, and management of carbon sink afforestation, as well as the coordinated development of ecology and social economy. At present, research on the carbon emission accounting of the CSA in northern China is still lacking. According to the relevant models and parameters of estimating live biomasses with the default method from the IPCC’s (Intergovernm... [more]

Due to the increasing pressures on the environment derived from the intensive use of energy, policy-makers are increasingly aware of the need to design new energy policies capable of addressing those negative impacts on the environment [...]

The demand for sustainable economic growth highlights the trade off between environmental and economic targets. From the perspective of economic growth target (EGT) management and green innovation (GI) practice, in this study, we constructed dynamic panel, spatial Dubin, quantile, and threshold models to measure the impact of EGT on GI using the panel data of 284 prefecture cities in China from 2006 to 2018. The results show that EGT has a negative impact on GI, which is characterized by dynamic, superposition, spatial, and nonlinear effects; there is remarkable heterogeneity in different regions, development stages, and urban characteristics, and the empirical conclusion is still credible under many robustness tests. We also studied the heterogeneous impact of economic growth targets with different characteristics on green innovation. This study puts forward policy implications from two perspectives: optimizing top-level design and maximizing the trade off in multi-objective accountab... [more]

In this work, the performance of medium-pressure UV/peracetic acid (MPUV/PAA/H2O2) was explored on removing reactive black 5 (RB5), aniline (ANL), and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), three typical refractory contaminants in printing and dyeing wastewater, compared with MPUV/H2O2. MPUV/PAA/H2O2 showed 75.0, 44.9, and 57.7% removals of RB5, ANL, and PVA, respectively, within 5 min. The removal of RB5 increased from 68.98 to 91.2%, with pH increasing from 6 to 9, while the removals of ANL and PVA were much less pH-dependent. Quenching experiment results indicated that UV photolysis and radical (i.e., •OH and R-C•) oxidation contributed to RB5 removal, while PAA showed high activity in the oxidation of ANL. For PVA, •OH oxidation and UV photolysis were likely the main mechanisms. The coexisting natural organic matter had a negative effect on the degradation of RB5 and PVA. In addition, MPUV/PAA/H2O2 could effectively degrade those pollutants without increasing the toxicity. This work provides a t... [more]

Functional Food demonstrates a wide spectrum of physiological benefits and reduces the risks of several health hazards to consumers; however, its appearance is similar to conventional food and is considered as part of the regular diet [...]

The fig tree (Ficus carica L.) was one of the first domesticated trees. In 2019, the world’s fig fruit production was estimated at 1153 tons. However, fig leaves are not utilized, resulting in copious quantities of bio-waste. To identify promising fig tree varieties, hydroethanolic extracts were prepared from the leaves of five fig tree varieties (Pasteliere—PA, Longue d’Aout—LA, Dauphinie—DA, Boujassote Noire—BN, and Marseille—MA). The variety with the highest concentration of organic acids was BN (146.5 mg/g dw), while glucose, fructose, and sucrose were the predominant sugars across all varieties. All extracts present α-tocopherol as the prevalent tocopherol isoform (above 78%), while PUFA fatty acids were predominant, ranging from 53% to 71% of total fatty acids. BN showed moderate antioxidant activity (EC50 0.23 ± 0.01 mg/mL), while the DA variety presented promising cytotoxicity against the tumor AGS and MCF-7 cell line (GI50 158 ± 13 and 223 ± 21 μg/mL) and especially in the inh... [more]

Organic waste management is an important concern for both industries and communities. Proper management is crucial for various reasons, such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions, promoting sustainability, and improving public health. Composted manure is a valuable source of nutrients and organic matter that can be used as a soil amendment in agriculture. Some important benefits of using composted manure in agriculture include: improves soil fertility, enhances soil structure, reduces soil erosion, suppresses plant diseases, and reduces reliance on synthetic fertilizers. Composted manure represents one of the most effective methods of organic waste valorization. Its macronutrients and micronutrients content can increase plant yield, without any reported negative or toxic effects on the soil and plants at various application rates. However, improper use of farmyard manure can have negative effects on the environment, such as air pollution from greenhouse gas emissions, soil acidification... [more]

Microplastics (MPs), a new type of pollutant, pose a significant threat to the environment at high concentrations. One of the primary sources of MPs in the ocean is river runoff, highlighting the need to investigate the spatial and temporal variations of MPs in rivers that flow into the sea, as well as their contributing factors. In this study, we analyzed MPs distribution and their influence factors in the Lincheng River, China. The Lincheng is the second largest river in Zhoushan island that directly flows into the ocean. MPs in the river water and sediments were detected during the wet season (July 2021), the dry season (November 2021) and the typhoon season (September 2021), and MPs were present in all reaches of the river. The abundance of MPs in the river was moderate compared to other studies, with the river water exhibiting a concentration of 15 ± 2.64 n/L and the sediment containing 318.24 ± 49.53 n/kg of MPs. In surface water, the most commonly found MP was blue man-made cell... [more]

Exposed geo−infrastructures filled with compacted soils experience cyclic wetting−drying effects due to environment and underground water fluctuations. Soil physical and mechanical behaviors are prone to deterioration to a great extent, e.g., swelling, collapse, or even slope failure, resulting in huge losses to human life, safety, and engineering construction. In this paper, hydraulic loading tests of wetting−drying cycles were carried out on compacted fine soil via a one−dimensional pressure plate apparatus equipped with bender elements. The influences of wetting−drying paths on the soil characteristics of moisture content, void ratio and shear modulus were obtained and analyzed. Results showed that cyclic wetting−drying effects weakened the soil’s water retention capacity. It was observed that it was harder for pore water to approach saturation at a lower matric suction level and to be expelled at a higher matric suction level. Typical swelling and shrinkage deformations occurred du... [more]

Leak of fuels and lubricants occurring during exploration, distribution, refining and storage operations is the major cause of environmental pollution due to petroderivatives dispersion. The quick use of a series of physicochemical and biological techniques is needed to drastically reduce the magnitude of damage provoked by these pollutants. Among them, soil washing proved to be an effective alternative to the remediation of hydrocarbon-polluted sites, mainly if combined with surfactant utilization. However, the direct use of surfactants can lead to problems related to the toxicity and dispersion of the resulting by-products, as the majority of marketed surfactants are produced from oil derivatives. In this context, green surfactants appear as a promising alternative to their synthetic counterpart. In the present study, two green surfactants, i.e., a chemically synthesized biobased surfactant and a Starmerella bombicola biosurfactant, were applied in soil decontamination tests using a... [more]

Fiber cannabis has been grown in Lithuania for a long time, but its cultivation technologies have not been widely studied. However, the growing population and consumption forces us to look to alternatives and to make efforts and find solutions to facilitate the cultivation of fiber cannabis because the use of fiber cannabis can be for many different types of products. The aim of the study was to evaluate the impact of the interaction of fibrous cannabis (Cannabis sativa L.) residue and soil on the mechanical properties of the residue and the environment in cultivation technology using a shredding roller. The study determined the effect of the shredding roller on the moisture content of cannabis residues, lignin content, visual changes, and mechanical characteristics of breaking and cutting. Examining cannabis residues according to the dominant different diameters of 5-, 8-, and 10-mm organic cannabis residues, it was found that the highest efficiency of the shredding roller is when rol... [more]

A novel strategy for the separation of cadmium from base metals in chloride medium by anion exchange based on the formation of cadmium halo-complexes is presented in this article. Instead of using excess Br− or I− in the feed solution, the anion exchange resin or fibre was first preloaded with Br− or I− for Cd2+ adsorption from Cl− solution. Thus, the consumption of iodide or bromide was minimized while promising high adsorption stability of Cd2+. The adsorption thermodynamics and kinetics of Cd2+ were studied. The adsorption thermodynamics results were processed with Langmuir and Freundlich models and adsorption kinetics results were treated with Pseudo first order model, Pseudo second order model and intraparticle diffusion model. The adsorption mechanism was studied with the aid of FTIR and elemental analysis. Three strategies were applied for the stripping of Cd2+, including the use of water for disequilibrating its halo-complex formation, the formation of positively charged specie... [more]

Styrene-butadiene (SBR) and acrylonitrile-butadiene (NBR) rubber blends with tetramethyl thiuram disulfide (TMTD) and tetramethyl thiuram monosulfide (TMTS) accelerators and environmentally friendly plasticizers, obtained from PET recycling and biobased resources (LA/PG/PET/EG/LA), were prepared. The mechanical properties of the obtained rubber products were tested and compared with those of commercial dioctyl terephthalate (DOTP). TMTS was prepared by simple and efficient one-pot synthesis from dimethylamine, carbon disulfide, potassium cyanide, and ammonium chloride as catalysts in recycled isopropanol/water azeotrope as solvent. In a comparative study, methoxide, ethoxide, iodide, and amide ions were also used. The two-step reaction mechanism of TMTS synthesis involves the oxidation of the amine salt of dimethyldithiocarbamic acid to TMTD by hydrogen peroxide and sulfur elimination from the TMTD disulfide bond. Potassium cyanide appears to be the most efficient nucleophile. The simp... [more]