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Journals
Processes
Special Issues
Clean Combustion and Emission Control Technologies
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Clean Combustion and Emission Control Technologies

A special issue of Processes (ISSN 2227-9717). This special issue belongs to the section "Energy Systems".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 August 2026 | Viewed by 3779

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Renjie Zou

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
State Key Laboratory of Coal Combustion, School of Energy and Power Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China
Interests: thermal conversion (including combustion, pyrolysis, and gasification); solid fuels and waste; pollutants migration and control; reaction kinetics; disposal of retired new energy devices
Dr. Yang Xu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Environment Research Institute, Shandong University, Qingdao 266237, China
Interests: gaseous pollutant control (NO, Hg0, VOCs, CO); resource utilization of organic solid waste; recycling of spent lithium-ion battery
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Xuelei Duan

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Hebei Key Laboratory of Power Plant Flue Gas Multi-Pollutants Control, Department of Environmental Science & Engineering, North China Electric Power University, Baoding 071000, China
Interests: gaseous mercury control technologies; mercury speciation analysis; resource utilization of photovoltaic solid waste
Prof. Dr. Lin Cui

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Energy and Power Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan 250061, China
Interests: multiphase fine particle control; carbon capture and mineralisation utilization; traditional/new energy waste heat recovery and utilization; intelligent operation and control of desulphurization and denitrification; zero discharge and resource recovery of desulphurization wastewater

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Combustion is one of the earliest methods humans have actively utilized to harness energy and has been a key driver of human civilization's progress. To this day, combustion continues to play a crucial role in modern societal development, making significant contributions across various sectors, including energy, manufacturing, transportation, and cooking. However, combustion inevitably results in the production of certain pollutants (NOx, SOx, PM, etc.) and secondary waste products (fly ash, gypsum, wastewater, etc.). In the global context of addressing climate change, promoting energy transition, and implementing stricter environmental regulations, developing efficient and clean combustion technologies and effectively controlling pollutant emissions have become core challenges and urgent needs for human development. This Special Issue, “Clean Combustion and Emission Control Technologies,” aims to compile the latest research progress, innovative technologies, and profound insights in this field, focusing on two key pathways: reducing pollutant generation at the source (clean combustion) and efficiently removing pollutants at the end (emission control), to support the clean utilization of energy and improve environmental quality.

This Special Issue sincerely invites and plans to include high-quality original research papers and reviews covering (but not limited to) the following themes:

  1. Combustion (including pyrolysis and gasification);
  2. Low/zero-carbon fuel combustion or co-combustion;
  3. Novel combustion technologies;
  4. Sulfur, nitrogen, particulate matter, and VOCs control technologies;
  5. Heavy metal control technologies;
  6. Disposal of by-products (fly ash, gypsum, wastewater, etc.);
  7. Clean disposal of solid waste;
  8. CO2 capture;
  9. Combustion testing and diagnostics;
  10. AI-driven efficient clean combustion.

We sincerely invite experts and scholars in related fields to submit their papers!

Dr. Renjie Zou
Dr. Yang Xu
Dr. Xuelei Duan
Prof. Dr. Lin Cui
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Processes is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • combustion
  • pyrolysis
  • gasification
  • pollutant
  • biomass
  • hydrogen/ammonia
  • DeNOx/SO2
  • adsorption/absorption
  • catalysis
  • modelling

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Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

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25 pages, 2868 KB  
Article
Integrated Experimental and Physics-Informed Neural Networks Assessment of Emissions from Pelleted Woody Biomass
by Nicolás Gutiérrez, Marcela Muñoz-Catalán, Álvaro González-Flores, Valeria Olea, Tomás Mora-Chandia and Robinson Betancourt Astete
Processes 2026, 14(2), 220; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr14020220 - 8 Jan 2026
Viewed by 417
Abstract
Accurately predicting pollutant emission factors (EFs) from woody biomass fuels remains challenging because small-scale combustion tests are fuel-specific, time-consuming, and highly sensitive to operating conditions. This study combines controlled laboratory combustion experiments with a physics-informed artificial neural network (ANN–PINN) to estimate the emission [...] Read more.
Accurately predicting pollutant emission factors (EFs) from woody biomass fuels remains challenging because small-scale combustion tests are fuel-specific, time-consuming, and highly sensitive to operating conditions. This study combines controlled laboratory combustion experiments with a physics-informed artificial neural network (ANN–PINN) to estimate the emission factors of particulate matter (EFPM), carbon monoxide (EFCO), and nitrogen oxides (EFNOx) using only laboratory-scale fuel characterization. Three pelletized woody biomass, Pinus radiata, Acacia dealbata, and Nothofagus obliqua, were analyzed through ultimate and proximate composition, lignin content, and TGA-derived parameters and tested in a residential pellet stove under identical control setpoints, resulting in a narrow and well-defined operating regime. A medium-depth ANN–PINN was constructed by integrating mechanistic constraints, monotonicity based on known emission trends and a weak carbon balance penalty, into a feed-forward neural network trained and evaluated using Leave-One-Out Cross-Validation. The model accurately reproduced the experimental behavior of EFCO and captured structured variability in EFPM, while the limited nitrogen variability of the fuels restricted generalization for EFNOx. Sensitivities derived via automatic differentiation revealed physically coherent relationships, demonstrating that PM emissions depend jointly on fuel chemistry and aero-thermal conditions, CO emissions are dominated by mixing and temperature, and NOx formation is primarily governed by fuel-bound nitrogen. When applied to external biomass fuels characterized independently in the literature, the ANN–PINN produced physically plausible predictions, highlighting its potential as a rapid, low-cost screening tool for assessing new biomass feedstocks and supporting cleaner residential heating technologies. The integrated experimental–PINN framework provides a physically consistent and data-efficient alternative to classical empirical correlations and purely data-driven ANN models. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Clean Combustion and Emission Control Technologies)
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Review

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21 pages, 2807 KB  
Review
Interfacial Solar Evaporation for Treating High-Salinity Wastewater: Chance and Necessity
by Shunjian Ji, Zhihong Zhang, Meijie Zhang, Zexin Yang, Yaguang Fan, Juan Zhang, Yingping Pang and Lin Cui
Processes 2025, 13(9), 2679; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr13092679 - 22 Aug 2025
Viewed by 3119
Abstract
The tension in the relationship between water and energy seriously restricts the harmonious coexistence between man and the ecological environment. The solar-powered interface evaporation technology emerging in recent years has shown good application prospects in high-salt wastewater treatment for achieving the zero-discharge treatment [...] Read more.
The tension in the relationship between water and energy seriously restricts the harmonious coexistence between man and the ecological environment. The solar-powered interface evaporation technology emerging in recent years has shown good application prospects in high-salt wastewater treatment for achieving the zero-discharge treatment of wastewater. In this review, advanced solar-driven interfacial evaporation is primarily focused on its mechanisms, photothermal materials optimization, and the structure of solar evaporators for salt removal. The high wide-spectrum solar absorption rate of photothermal materials determines the total energy that can be utilized in the evaporation system. The light-to-heat conversion capacity of photothermal materials directly affects the efficiency and performance of solar interface evaporators. We highlight the microstructures enabled by the nanophotonic designs of photothermal material-based solar absorbers, which can achieve highly efficient light harvesting across the entire solar irradiance spectral range with weighted solar absorptivity. Finally, based on current research, existing problems, and future development directions for high-salt wastewater evaporation research are proposed. The review provides insights into the effective treatment of high-salt wastewater. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Clean Combustion and Emission Control Technologies)
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