The oil palm kernel shell biochar (OPKS-B) and oil palm kernel shell activated carbon (OPKS-AC) were used as a framework to entrap urea using adsorption method. Batch adsorption studies were performed to gauge the influence of contact time on the adsorption of urea onto both OPKS-B and OPKS-AC. To evaluate the physicochemical traits of the studied materials, energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer (EDS), N2-sorption, X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), elemental analysis, differential thermal gravity (TG/DTG) and thermal gravity were applied. Result shows OPKS-AC has a better sorption capacity for urea compared to OPKS-B. The Langmuir isotherm model better justified the sorption isotherms of urea. For the adsorption process for both OPKS-B and OPKS-AC, the pseudo-second-order kinetic model was picked as it best fitted the experimental sorption outcome with the superior R2 values of > 65.1% and > 74.5%, respectively. The outcome of the experiments showcased that the maximum monolayer adsorption capacity of the OPKS-AC towards urea was 239.68 mg/g. OPKS-AC has showed promising attributes to be picked as an organic framework in the production of controlled release urea fertiliser for a greener and environmentally friendly agricultural practices.
Electrodialysis desalination uses ion exchange membranes, membrane spacers, and conductors to remove salt from water. Membrane spacers, made of polymeric strands, reduce concentration polarization. These spacers have properties such as porosity and filament shape that affect their performance. One important property is the spacer-bulk attack angle. This study systematically reviews the characteristics of a 45° attack angle of spacers and its effects on concentration polarization and fluid dynamics. Membrane spacers in a channel create distinct flow fields and concentration profiles. When set at a 45° attack angle, spacers provide greater turbulence and mass-heat transfer than traditional spacers. This is because both the transverse and longitudinal filaments become diagonal in relation to the bulk flow direction. A lower attack angle (<45°) results in a lower pressure drop coupled with a decline in wakes and stream disruption because when the filaments are more parallel to the primary fluid direction, the poorer their affect. This research concludes that membrane spacers with a 45° spacer-bulk attack angle function optimally compared to other angles.
The benthic microbial fuel cell (BMFC) is one of the most efficient types of bioelectrochemical fuel cell systems. Modern bioelectrochemical fuel cells have several drawbacks, including an unstable organic substrate and a microorganism-unfriendly atmosphere. The recent literature to encounter such issues is one of the emerging talks. Researchers are focusing on the utilization of biomass and waste to encounter such challenges and make the technique more feasible at the pilot scale. This study investigated the combination of local bakery waste as an organic substrate with lignocellulosic biomass material. The whole experiment was conducted for 45 days. At an external resistance of 1000 ῼ and an internal resistance of 677 ῼ, the power density was found to be 3.51 mW/m2. Similarly, for Pb2+, Cd2+, Cr3+, Ni2+, and Co2+, the degradation efficiency was 84.40%, 81.21%, 80%, 89.50%, and 86.0%, respectively. The bacterial identification results showed that Liquorilactobacillus nagelii, Proteus mirabilis, Pectobacterium punjabense, and Xenorhabdus thuongxuanensis are the most prominent species found on anode biofilm. The method of electron generation in this study, which includes the degradation of metal ions, is also well described. Lastly, optimising the parameters showed that pH 7 provides a feasible environment for operation. A few future suggestions for practical steps are enclosed for the research community.
There is an increasing concern about incorporating green criteria into production planning approaches. Production planning models that ignore green parameters may generate outcomes that are unfriendly to the environment. The relevant literature has suggested a flourishing trend towards the integration of green parameters into production planning approaches. The earlier reviews have most commonly analyzed the green production planning approaches from an "energy efficiency" perspective. Literature on the integration of other green criteria is also available. However, such studies are rarely reviewed. Along with "energy efficiency," the study in hand reviews the production planning strategies from another green perspective which is "low-carbon emissions." The first objective of this study is to review the medium and short-term production planning approaches from the aforementioned green criteria and provide a classification scheme. Second, new research avenues are identified to facilitate researchers in incorporating green schemes in production planning approaches. This study explored various databases for articles published on green production planning approaches. Consequently, 84 articles published between 2011 and 2022 were considered for the review. This review pointed out that most of the studies on green production planning considered "energy efficiency" and studies on "carbon emissions" were overlooked. Furthermore, green concepts were mostly integrated into the short-term production planning level and comparatively few studies were found for the medium-term. This study will help researchers to analyze green production planning in terms of modeling approaches, objective functions, uncertainties, solution approaches, etc.
Over the last three decades, the world has been facing the phenomenon of the ecological deficit as the ecological footprint is continuously rising due to the persistent decline of the per-capita bio-capacity. Moreover, there is a substantial increase in globalization and electricity consumption for the same period, and transportation is contributing to economic prosperity at the cost of environmental sustainability. Understanding the determinants of ecological footprint is thus critical for suggesting appropriate policies for environmental sustainability. As a result, this study analyzes the impacts of economic globalization, transportation, coal rents, and electricity consumption in ecological footprint in the context of the USA over the period 1995 to 2018. The data have been extracted from "Global Footprint Network," "Swiss Economic Institute," and "World Development Indicators." The current study has also applied the flexible Fourier form nonlinear unit root test to examine the stationarity among variables. For the empirical estimation, a novel technique, the "quantile auto-regressive distributive lag model," is applied in the study to deal with the nonlinear associations of the variables and to evaluate the long-term stability of variables across quantiles. The study's findings indicate that coal rents, transportation, and globalization significantly and positively contribute to the deterioration of ecological footprints at different quantile ranges in the short and long run. Electricity consumption is found to have a positive and significant impact at lower quantile ranges in the long run but not have a significant impact in the short run. The study suggested that lowering the dependence of the transport sector on fossil fuels, more use of hydroelectricity, and stringent strategies to curb coal consumption would be helpful to reduce the positive influence of these variables on ecological footprints in the USA.
There is a shred of evidence of environmental degradation in the form of carbon emissions to behave differently when tested with different macroeconomic variables. This paper aims to examine the long-run and short-run association between natural resource rent, financial development, and urbanization on carbon emission from the context of the USA during 1995-2015 with the help of a contemporary and innovative approach named quantile autoregressive distributed lagged model (QARDL). The stated approach is applied due to the fact that non-linearity is observed for the study variables. The findings indicated that the higher financial development (0.304), natural resource rent (0.102), and urbanization (0.489) have a positive impact on the environmental degradation in the region of USA during long-run estimation in the stated quantiles of the study. This would indicate that higher financial development, urbanization, and natural resources are putting more environmental pressure on the economy of the USA. Similarly, the findings under short-run estimation confirm that past and lagged values of carbon emission, financial development, natural resource rent, and urbanization are significantly determining the current values of the carbon emission. For this reason, it is suggested that the government requires some immediate steps of the USA to control the harmful effect of such financial development, more urbanization, and higher natural resource rent as well. This would indicate the reflection of some green strategies in all three explanatory variables to generate some fruitful environmental outcomes.
The recovery and utilisation of waste heat from flue/exhaust gases (RU/WHFG) could potentially provide sustainable energy while curbing pollutant emissions. Over time, the RU/WHFG research landscape has gained significant traction and yielded innovative technologies, sustainable strategies, and publications. However, critical studies highlighting current advancements, publication trends, research hotspots, major stakeholders, and future research directions on RU/WHFG research remain lacking. Therefore, this paper presents a comprehensive bibliometric analysis and literature review of the RU/WHFG research landscape based on publications indexed in Scopus. Results showed that 123 publications and 2191 citations were recovered between 2010 and 2022. Publication trends revealed that the growing interest in RU/WHFG is mainly due to environmental concerns (e.g. pollution, global warming, and climate change), research collaborations, and funding availability. Stakeholder analysis revealed that numerous researchers, affiliations, and countries have actively contributed to the growth and development of RU/WHFG. Lin Fu and Tsinghua University (China) are the most prolific researchers and affiliations, whereas the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and China are the most prolific funder and country, respectively. Funding availability from influential schemes such as NSFC has accounted for China's dominance. Keyword co-occurrence identified three major research hotspots, namely, thermal energy utilisation and management (cluster 1), integrated energy and resource recovery (cluster 2), and system analysis and optimisation (cluster 3). Literature review revealed that researchers are currently focused on maximising thermodynamic/energy efficiency, fuel minimisation, and emission reduction. Despite progress, research gaps remain in low-temperature/low-grade waste heat recovery, utilisation, storage, life cycle, and environmental impact analysis.
This article provides a theoretical framework for comprehending the connections between dynamic data analytics capability (DDAC), innovation capabilities (IC), supply chain resilience (RES), and sustainable supply chain performance (SSCP). Since this is the first empirical investigation of the sequential mediation effect between DDAC and SSCP through IC and RES, it fills a critical need in the supply chain literature. A quantitative methodology was used, involving a survey questionnaire distributed to 259 large Pakistani manufacturing firms. We used PLS-SEM to test for the expected associations. Findings show that using DDAC has a beneficial effect on both innovative and resilient capabilities, which in turn leads to better SSCP. The research illuminates the sequential mediating roles of product, process, and resilience, underlining the need of combining data-driven innovation with resilience in order to achieve sustainable supply chain performance. These results provide useful guidance for businesses that want to boost their sustainability results by taking a more all-encompassing approach to data-driven innovation and resilience.
Rice is a predominant staple food in many countries. It is a great source of energy but can also accumulate toxic and trace metal(loid)s from the environment and pose serious health hazards to consumers if overdosed. This study aims to determine the concentration of toxic metal(loid)s [arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), nickel (Ni)] and essential metal(loid)s [iron (Fe), selenium (Se), copper (Cu), chromium (Cr), cobalt (Co)] in various types of commercially available rice (basmati, glutinous, brown, local whites, and fragrant rice) in Malaysia, and to assess the potential human health risk. Rice samples were digested following the USEPA 3050B acid digestion method and the concentrations of metal(loid)s were analyzed using an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). Mean concentrations (mg/kg as dry weight) of metal(loid)s (n=45) across all rice types were found in the order of Fe (41.37)>Cu (6.51)>Cr (1.91)>Ni (0.38)>As (0.35)>Se (0.07)>Cd (0.03)>Co (0.02). Thirty-three percent and none of the rice samples surpassed, respectively, the FAO/WHO recommended limits of As and Cd. This study revealed that rice could be a primary exposure pathway to toxic metal(loid)s, leading to either noncarcinogenic or carcinogenic health problems. The non-carcinogenic health risk was mainly associated with As which contributed 63% to the hazard index followed by Cr (34%), Cd (2%), and Ni (1%). The carcinogenic risk to adults was high (>10-4) for As, Cr, Cd, and Ni. The cancer risk (CR) for each element was 5 to 8 times higher than the upper limit of cancer risk for an environmental carcinogen (<10-4). The findings from this study could provide the metal(loid)s pollution status of various types of rice which are beneficial to relevant authorities in addressing food safety and security-related issues.
Effective end-of-life vehicle (ELV) management is crucial for minimizing the environmental and health impacts of Indonesia's growing automotive industry. However, proper ELV management has received limited attention. To bridge this gap, we conducted a qualitative study to identify barriers to effective ELV management in Indonesia's automotive sector. Through in-depth interviews with key stakeholders and a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats analysis, we identified internal and external factors influencing ELV management. Our findings reveal major barriers, including inadequate government regulation and enforcement, insufficient infrastructure and technology, low education and awareness, and a lack of financial incentives. We also identified internal factors such as limited infrastructure, inadequate strategic planning, and challenges in waste management and cost collection methods. Based on these findings, we recommend a comprehensive and integrated approach to ELV management involving enhanced coordination among government, industry, and stakeholders. The government should enforce regulations and provide financial incentives to encourage proper ELV management practices. Industry players should invest in technology and infrastructure to support effective ELV treatment. By addressing these barriers and implementing our recommendations, policymakers can develop sustainable ELV management policies and decisions in Indonesia's fast-paced automotive sector. Our study contributes valuable insights to guide the development of effective strategies for ELV management and sustainability in Indonesia.
Due to disparities in the allocation of rainwater and drought, extreme exploitation of groundwater reservoirs has depleted water supplies in many locations. In addition, improper disposal of domestic and industrial waste leads to poor drainage and deterioration of water quality. According to studies, desalination methods are an effective solution for treating unconventional water, i.e., sea and brackish water, and making it usable in daily life. Solar-powered desalination has recently received a great deal of attention around the world. Herein, we summarized challenges and future perspectives associated with solar-powered desalination units. Some hybrid technologies are also discussed like solar-wind desalination and RO-ED crystallizer technology in Morocco and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Previously, most experimental studies focused on the use of solar energy in traditional desalination methods such as multistage flash and multi-effect distillation. Desalination with reverse osmosis has become popular due to membrane technology improvement and benefits like high recovery ratios and low energy consumption. Furthermore, it has been seen that solar energy is less expensive than the energy obtained from traditional fuels in the MENA area. This article aims to comparatively and systematically review the economic feasibility of the use of solar photovoltaic reverse osmosis in desalination in the MENA region.
This study develops a set of measures to address the interrelationship among circular waste-based bioeconomy (CWBE) attributes, including those of government strategy, digital collaboration, supply chain integration, smart operations, and a green supply chain, to build a circular bioeconomy that feeds fish waste back into the economy. CWBE development is a potential solution to the problem of waste reuse in the fish supply chain; however, this potential remains untapped, and prior studies have failed to provide the criteria to guide its practices. Such an analytical framework requires qualitative assessment, which is subject to uncertainty due to the linguistic preferences of decision makers. Hence, this study adopts the fuzzy Delphi method to obtain a valid set of attributes. A fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation was applied to address the attribute relationships and determine the driving criteria of CWBE development. The results showed that government strategies play a causal role in CWBE development and drive digital collaboration, smart operations, and supply chain integration. The findings also indicated that smart manufacturing technology, organizational policies, market enhancement, supply chain analytics, and operational innovation are drivers of waste integration from fisheries into the circular economy through waste-based bioeconomy processes.
In the context of global climate change and the influence of human activities, the concept of "sponge city" is put forward to realize the purification, collection, and reuse of rainwater. The effective evaluation of LID facilities in sponge cities is of great guiding significance for the promotion and construction of sponge cities. IFMS (Integrated Flood Modeling System) Urban was selected to construct the rainstorm simulation. LID parameters were added to simulate the improvement of urban waterlogging after the construction of sponge city. A reasonable disaster loss assessment method was used to calculate the disaster mitigation benefit brought by the construction of sponge city. Through the comparison of the inundation situation before and after LID facilities' construction, it can be concluded that the mitigation effect of LID facilities on the overall inundation area of the city decreases with the increase of rainfall recurrence period, with the maximum reduction rate reaching 13.63% in the 5-year recurrence period and the minimum reduction rate of 11.06% in the 50-year recurrence period. LID facilities have a better disaster reduction effect for rainfall events with a small recurrence period than for rainfall events with a large recurrence period.
Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is reported to have a high incidence rate and is one of the most prevalent types of cancer contributing towards 85% of all incidences of lung cancer. Berberine is an isoquinoline alkaloid which offers a broad range of therapeutical and pharmacological actions against cancer. However, extremely low water solubility and poor oral bioavailability have largely restricted its therapeutic applications. To overcome these limitations, we formulated berberine-loaded liquid crystalline nanoparticles (LCNs) and investigated their in vitro antiproliferative and antimigratory activity in human lung epithelial cancer cell line (A549). 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyl tetrazolium bromide (MTT), trypan blue staining, and colony forming assays were used to evaluate the anti-proliferative activity, while scratch wound healing assay and a modified Boyden chamber assay were carried out to determine the anti-migratory activity. We also investigated major proteins associated with lung cancer progression. The developed nanoparticles were found to have an average particle size of 181.3 nm with spherical shape, high entrapment efficiency (75.35%) and have shown sustained release behaviour. The most remarkable findings reported with berberine-loaded LCNs were significant suppression of proliferation, inhibition of colony formation, inhibition of invasion or migration via epithelial mesenchymal transition, and proliferation related proteins associated with cancer progression. Our findings suggest that anti-cancer compounds with the problem of poor solubility and bioavailability can be overcome by formulating them into nanotechnology-based delivery systems for better efficacy. Further in-depth investigations into anti-cancer mechanistic research will expand and strengthen the current findings of berberine-LCNs as a potential NSCLC treatment option.
This study conducts a comprehensive literature review of articles on the triple bottom line (TBL) published from January 1997 to September 2018 to provide significant insights and support to guide further discussion. There were three booms in TBL publications, occurring in 2003, 2011, and 2015, and many articles attempt to address the issue of sustainability by employing the TBL. This literature analysis includes 720, 132, and 58 articles from the Web of Science (WOS), Inspec, and Scopus databases, respectively, and reveals the gaps in existing research. To discover the barriers and points of overlap, these articles are categorized into six aspects of the TBL: economic, environmental, social, operations, technology, and engineering. Examining the top 3 journals in terms of published articles on each aspect reveals the research trends and gaps. The findings provide solid evidence confirming the argument that the TBL as currently defined is insufficient to cover the entire concept of sustainability. The social and engineering aspects still require more discussion to support the linkage of the TBL and to reinforce its theoretical basis. Additionally, to discover the gaps in the data sources, theories applied, methods adopted, and types of contributions, this article summarizes 82 highly cited articles covering each aspect. This article offers theoretical insights by identifying the top contributing countries, institutions, authors, keyword networks, and authorship networks to encourage scholars to push the current discussion further forward, and it provides practical insights to bridge the gap between theory and practice for enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of improvements.
The primary responsibility for continuously discharging toxic organic pollutants into water bodies and open environments is the increase in industrial and agricultural activities. Developing economical and suitable methods to continuously remove organic pollutants from wastewater is highly essential. The aim of the present research was to apply response surface methodology (RSM) and artificial neural networks (ANNs) for optimization and modeling of photocatalytic degradation of acid orange 7 (AO7) by commercial TiO2-P25 nanoparticles (TNPs). Dose of TNPs, pH, and AO7 concentration were selected as investigated parameters. RSM results reveal the reflective rate of AO7 removal of ~ 94.974% was obtained at pH 7.599, TNP dose of 0.748 g/L, and AO7 concentration of 28.483 mg/L. The resulting quadratic model is satisfactory with the highest coefficient of determination (R2) between the predicted and experimental data (R2 = 0.98 and adjusted R2 = 0.954). On the other hand, ANNs were successfully employed for modeling of AO7 degradation process. The proposed ANN model was absolutely fitted with experimental results producing the highest R2. Furthermore, root mean square error (RMSE), mean average deviation (MAD), absolute average relative error (AARE), and mean square error (MSE) were examined more to compare the predictive capabilities of ANN and RSM models. The experimental data was well fitted into pseudo-first-order and pseudo-second-order kinetics with more accuracy. Thermodynamic parameters, namely enthalpy, entropy, Gibbs' free energy, and activation energy, were also evaluated to suggest the nature of the degradation process. The increase of temperature was analyzed to be more suitable for the fast removal of AO7 over TNPs. Graphical abstract.
A waste material known as palm oil empty fruit bunch (EFB) is used as a source of cellulose for the development of polymeric materials for the removal of metal ions from industrial wastewater. A poly(acrylonitrile)-grafted palm cellulose copolymer was synthesized by a conventional free radical initiating process followed by synthesis of a poly(amidoxime) ligand by oximation reaction. The resulting products were characterized by FT-IR, FE-SEM, EDX, TGA, DSC, and XPS. The poly(amidoxime) ligand was used to coordinate with and extract a series of transition metal ions from water samples. The binding capacity (qe) of the ligand with the metal ions such as copper, iron, cobalt, nickel, and lead were 260, 210, 168, 172, and 272 mg g-1, respectively at pH 6. The adsorption process followed the pseudo-first-order kinetic model (R2 > 0.99) and as well as the Freundlich isotherm model (R2 > 0.99) indicating the occurrence of a multi-layer adsorption process in the amidoxime ligand adsorbent. Results from reusability studies show that the ligand can be recycled for at least 10 cycles without any significant losses to its initial adsorption capacity. The synthesized polymeric ligand was shown to absorb heavy metals from electroplating wastewater with up to 95% efficiency.
Financial development is identified as one of the significant factors that affect energy consumption and has been widely discussed in the literature. However, the association between financial development and renewable energy consumption is still at its earlier stage and is limitedly explored. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the non-linear association between financial development and renewable energy consumption in the top renewable energy consumption countries. The study utilized the newly introduced econometric technique panel smooth transition regression (PSTR) model with two regimes on annual panel data consisted of years 1997-2017. The result confirmed that all the financial development indicators increase renewable energy consumption but affect renewable energy consumption differently. Moreover, the economic growth and industrial structure showed a positive and significant association in both regimes, whereas the population showed a negative relationship with renewable energy consumption in a low growth regime but the association becomes positive in high growth regimes. The study suggested several policies for the top renewable consumption countries.
Polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) is a complicated endocrinopathy with an unclear etiology that afflicts fertility status in women. Although the underlying causes and pathophysiology of PCOS are not completely understood, it is suspected to be driven by environmental factors as well as genetic and epigenetic factors. Bisphenol A (BPA) is a weak estrogenic endocrine disruptor known to cause adverse reproductive outcomes in women. A growing relevance supports the notion that BPA may contribute to PCOS pathogenesis. Due to the indeterminate molecular mechanisms of BPA in PCOS endocrinopathy, we sought liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS), a metabolomics strategy that could generate a metabolic signature based on urinary BPA levels of PCOS and healthy individuals. Towards this, we examined urinary BPA levels in PCOS and healthy women by ELISA and performed univariate and chemometric analysis to distinguish metabolic patterns among high and low BPA in PCOS and healthy females, followed by pathway and biomarker analysis employing MetaboAnalyst 5.0. Our findings indicated aberrant levels of certain steroids, sphingolipids, and others, implying considerable disturbances in steroid hormone biosynthesis, linoleic, linolenic, sphingolipid metabolism, and various other pathways across target groups in comparison to healthy women with low BPA levels. Collectively, our findings provide insight into metabolic signatures of BPA-exposed PCOS women, which can potentially improve management strategies and precision medicine.