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Pollution Control and Sustainable Development of Renewable Energy Solid Waste

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Resources and Sustainable Utilization".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 March 2026 | Viewed by 328

Special Issue Editor

College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha 410005, China
Interests: heavy metals; functional materials; water treatment; soil remediation; health risk assessment
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The continuous development and utilization of non-renewable energy has caused energy shortages, restricted economic growth, and caused significant levels of carbon emissions that have led to global warming. Countries around the world are accelerating the transformations of their energy structures and expanding clean energy production. Nevertheless, the large-scale deployment of renewable energy technologies has started to pose challenges in solid waste management, for instance, in terms of wind turbine blades, photovoltaic panels, lithium-ion batteries, etc.

This Special Issue focuses on sustainable strategies for pollution control and resource recovery from these waste streams. We encourage submissions with a strong applied focus, emphasizing practical solutions and real-world implementations. Manuscripts should address the challenges associated with renewable energy solid waste recycling and its related environmental impact assessment and mitigation policies. Through our continuous advancement in technology, economics, and policy solutions, we will promote the circular economy and sustainable development of renewable resources and minimize the environmental impact of renewable energy waste.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but not limited to) the following:

  • Innovative recycling technologies;
  • Efficient material recovery methods;
  • Solid waste safe disposal approaches;
  • Environmental impact assessment;
  • Pollution mitigation strategies;
  • Policy-driven waste management models.

I look forward to receiving your contributions. 

Dr. Jia Wen
Guest Editor

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 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

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. Sustainability 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

  • renewable energy waste
  • wind turbine blades
  • photovoltaic panels
  • lithium-batteries
  • environmental sustainability

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

12 pages, 2381 KiB  
Article
A Novel Approach to Manufacturing an Antioxidant Material, GT-Ag@MSN, Using Recycled Silver and Silicon from Scrapped Photovoltaic Panels
by Jia Wen, Qing Yue, Zhifei Qi, Zhixuan Gong and Yujiao Ba
Sustainability 2025, 17(10), 4557; https://doi.org/10.3390/su17104557 - 16 May 2025
Viewed by 177
Abstract
This study developed a microporous silica nanosilver antioxidant material (GT-Ag@MSN) from waste photovoltaic (PV) cells by incorporating plant polyphenols in the in situ synthesis. The biosynthesized GT-Ag@MSN had an average size of 296.5 nm, a pore size of 1.96 nm, and an Ag [...] Read more.
This study developed a microporous silica nanosilver antioxidant material (GT-Ag@MSN) from waste photovoltaic (PV) cells by incorporating plant polyphenols in the in situ synthesis. The biosynthesized GT-Ag@MSN had an average size of 296.5 nm, a pore size of 1.96 nm, and an Ag loading of 1.45%. The material was further evaluated through antibacterial tests, antioxidant capacity tests, and a reducing power assay. GT-Ag@MSN exhibited a minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of 20 mg/mL for Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus, and a minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) of 50 mg/mL for both of them, which will need further efforts to improve the performance. However, GT-Ag@MSN exhibited a notable 1,1-Diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) scavenging ability of 74.7 ± 1.6% at a concentration of 250 μg/mL, and its reducing power in the range of 10–100 mg was greater than that of ascorbic acid at 10–100 μg/mL. This study proposes a new waste-to-wealth strategy that utilizes purified silicon and silver from recycling used PV modules, encouraging the advancement of PV waste recycling and reuse technology. Full article
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