Search Results (167)

The European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) introduces significant implications for sustainable trade and industrial decarbonization for non-EU industrial exporters. As a major cement supplier to the EU, Turkey faces key economic and environmental transition risks under this framework. This study quantifies the compliance exposure of Turkey’s cement exports to the EU by 2030 within an industrial sustainability framework across multiple carbon pricing, domestic policy, and decarbonization scenarios. Incorporating time-series forecasting, benchmark emissions intensities, and the operational 2026 CBAM regulatory framework alongside Turkey’s Climate Law No. 7552, the study evaluates compliance costs relative to export revenues. Results indicate that under business-as-usual conditions, without decarbonization or domestic carbon pricing, CBAM surcharges would equal 154% of total export revenue by 2030. Accounting for the 2030 CBAM phase-in factor (48.5%), compliance costs remain substantial at 75% of revenue. Establishing a national Emissions Trading System (TR ETS) under Climate Law No. 7552, with a domestic carbon price of €20/tCO₂e, reduces residual CBAM border payments to 44% of revenue, while a €50/tCO₂e domestic price offsets border surcharges entirely, redirecting carbon revenues to an industrial green transition fund. Furthermore, achieving a 41% reduction in direct cement emissions intensity lowers total carbon compliance costs to 21–26% of revenue. These findings demonstrate that domestic carbon pricing paired with dedicated resource allocation for low-carbon technologies is essential to advance long-term industrial sustainability, preserve export competitiveness, and prevent pass-through risks to downstream construction sectors. Full article

Managing the transition risks of carbon-intensive firms is essential for reconciling climate governance with the stable operation of the real economy; nevertheless, existing scholarship has yet to fully elucidate how climate policy uncertainty contributes to the formation of these risks. In this paper, we develop a firm-specific measure of climate policy uncertainty exposure by integrating China’s aggregate climate policy uncertainty index with climate-risk-related textual data retrieved from listed companies’ annual reports. Drawing on a panel dataset of A-share listed companies in nine carbon-intensive sectors over 2010–2023, we employ a partial-linear double/debiased machine-learning methodology to investigate how climate policy uncertainty exposure influences multidimensional firm transition risk. Our baseline estimations indicate that greater climate policy uncertainty exposure is associated with a statistically significant rise in transition risk among high-carbon firms, with the preferred model producing a coefficient estimate of 0.0243. These findings remain robust to an array of sensitivity checks and endogeneity-correction procedures. Mechanism analysis provides evidence consistent with four potential channels involving weaker intra-industry competition, lower corporate risk-taking, tighter financing constraints, and higher agency costs. Heterogeneity examinations reveal that the detrimental impact is particularly evident among larger enterprises, high-technology companies, and firms characterized by comparatively lower pollution levels. Further analysis based on conditional average treatment effects and best linear predictors reveals that media supervision and the presence of long-term institutional investors substantially reduce the extent to which climate policy uncertainty translates into firm transition risk. This study provides firm-level empirical evidence elucidating how climate policy uncertainty shapes multidimensional transition risk in the low-carbon transformation of high-carbon industries. Full article

Prefabricated construction couples factory production, buffer storage, transportation, on-site installation, and workforce resources. Desynchronization across these stages creates waiting, idle labor, standby, and buffer pressure—non-value-adding losses that local schedule and cost controls leave hidden. This study takes a project-control view of multi-stage prefabricated delivery and develops a full multi-stage synchronization model that makes these losses explicit and controllable during schedule evaluation. From a sustainable-construction perspective, the framework targets operational resource efficiency by reducing non-value-adding waiting, idle labor, buffer burden, and standby, rather than claiming direct carbon or life-cycle effects. The model optimizes three objectives: makespan, total cost, and a resource-efficiency synchronization loss (RESL) that aggregates waiting, crew-idle, buffer, and standby losses; RESL is a schedule-based resource-efficiency proxy, not a carbon or life-cycle measure. A SPEA2-based solver, SI-SAR-SPEA2, adds structured initialization and synchronization-aware light repair. Using project-inspired semi-realistic prefabricated building-delivery instances, the evaluation compares alternative model scopes, algorithm baselines, a pre-fixed fresh-seed extension, ablation variants, and sensitivity settings. The full model exposes cross-stage synchronization losses and substantially reduces RESL relative to a production–transport model, whereas its relative performance against a production–transport–installation model remains marginal, instance-dependent, and weight-dependent. Under the formal benchmark protocol, SI-SAR-SPEA2 improves hypervolume, average rank, and RESL compared with the SPEA2 backbone, but this quality gain requires additional runtime. The results position RESL as an integrated project-control indicator for comparing schedule alternatives in terms of delivery timing, cost exposure, workforce utilization, and synchronization risk. Full article

Artificial intelligence (AI) data centers are creating large, power-dense loads, often faster than transmission lines, substations, transformers, and grid interconnections can be expanded. This review assesses whether solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) can provide dependable on-site power during these grid delivery constraints and remain competitive after grid capacity becomes available. We critically synthesized evidence on AI electricity demand, competing power supply options, SOFC efficiency and durability, commercial deployments, environmental impacts, thermal and electrical integration, and hybrid SOFC–battery–grid systems. We also performed a screening-level levelized cost of electricity sensitivity analysis covering natural gas prices, carbon costs, stack replacement, grid electricity prices, and the avoided cost of delayed grid access. The evidence indicates that commercial SOFC systems can achieve approximately 50–60% net electrical efficiency and scale modularly from 325 kW units to a planned deployment of up to 2.45 GW. A nominal 100 MW installation would require approximately 308 such modules and at least 3600 m² of direct equipment area, excluding auxiliary systems and safety setbacks. However, multi-year durability targets of about 40,000 h, fuel and carbon price exposure, slow transient response, lifecycle methane emissions, and limited opportunities to use high temperature exhaust heat remain important constraints. The economic analysis indicates that avoided grid delay costs can justify SOFCs as bridge assets, whereas long-term retention requires competitiveness without this temporary benefit. SOFCs are therefore most suitable for sites that prioritize rapid access to firm power, modularity, reliability, and low local air pollutant emissions, rather than as a universal alternative to grid expansion. Full article

Urban air pollution remains a major public health concern, with road traffic representing one of the dominant sources of particulate matter and volatile organic compounds in growing cities. This study evaluates the level of chemical air pollution in Alba-Iulia municipality (Romania) through two measurement campaigns (May 2025 and October 2025), carried out at 26 and 19 points, respectively, selected based on traffic intensity and population vulnerability criteria (schools, kindergartens, hospitals, and the food market). Measurements targeted PM_2.5, PM₁₀, total volatile organic compounds (TVOC) and formaldehyde (HCHO), as well as carbon dioxide (CO₂), correlated with road traffic intensity. Statistical analysis revealed significant differences between the two seasons for PM_2.5, PM₁₀, and CO₂ (p < 0.01), as well as a strong correlation between particulate matter concentrations and vehicle counts (r = 0.60–0.95), consistent with road traffic being an important local contributor to particulate matter, though correlation alone cannot establish source dominance in a strict causal sense. A multiple regression controlling for both traffic and season explained over 73% of the variance in PM_2.5 and PM₁₀ and showed that traffic and season each contribute independently to particulate levels. Both mean PM_2.5 and PM₁₀ exceeded WHO and EU limit values in both campaigns, and the low-cost sensor over-read absolute concentrations by roughly 2–4× relative to the official monitoring network, so absolute values should be treated as orientative. Despite this bias, the consistent spatial and seasonal patterns show that portable low-cost sensors can reliably rank exposure hotspots and support the targeting of traffic-mitigation measures, such as selective catalytic reduction (SCR) systems, in medium-sized cities that lack dense reference monitoring networks. Full article

Engineered nanomaterials have been increasingly proposed for the treatment of contaminated soils. Nevertheless, most available evidence has been obtained in water, artificial substrates or short-term laboratory experiments, and performance in real soil is substantially more variable. This review examines nanoscale zero-valent iron, photocatalytic metal oxides, carbon-based nanomaterials, and supported or hybrid formulations, with particular attention to the soil properties and contaminant characteristics that control their mobility, transformation, reactivity, and persistence. Nano-enabled treatments can decrease the mobility of arsenic, chromium, lead, and other potentially toxic elements and can promote the degradation of selected pesticides and hydrocarbons. However, opposite responses have also been reported, including mobilisation of non-target elements, nanoparticle aggregation and passivation, effects on microbial communities and plants, contaminant rebound, and potential transport beyond the treated zone. Environmental assessment should therefore consider both the target contaminant and the applied or transformed nanomaterial, together with ecological and occupational exposure pathways. Current evidence does not support nanoremediation as a general replacement for conventional technologies. Its main value lies in its use as a site-specific component of integrated remediation strategies selected according to soil properties, contaminant behaviour, treatment scale, cost, life-cycle impacts, and future land use. European field experience remains limited, particularly in unsaturated soils, and no harmonised EU-wide authorisation procedure specifically for soil nanoremediation currently exists. Wider implementation will require realistic field trials, long-term monitoring, safer and recoverable formulations, transparent regulatory assessment, and evaluation of soil functions and ecosystem-service recovery. A site-specific decision framework is proposed to support material selection, risk–benefit evaluation, and responsible implementation. Full article

Concrete-filled steel tube (CFST) structures are widely used in modern infrastructure due to their superior strength, ductility, and composite action. However, long-term corrosion of the steel tube, particularly under aggressive environmental conditions, poses significant challenges to their durability and structural performance. This study presents a comprehensive review of corrosion mechanisms and mitigation strategies for CFST structures. The primary corrosion processes, including general corrosion, localized (pitting) corrosion, and circumferential corrosion, are critically examined with emphasis on the influence of chloride ingress, carbonation, marine exposure, and combined environmental actions such as freeze–thaw cycles and sustained loading. The effects of corrosion on structural behavior are analyzed in terms of load-carrying capacity, ductility, buckling resistance, and failure modes. A systematic evaluation of existing mitigation strategies is conducted, encompassing material-based approaches, protective coatings, cathodic protection systems, and structural strengthening techniques such as fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP), fabric-reinforced cementitious matrix (FRCM), and steel jacketing. The comparative performance of these methods is assessed based on effectiveness, cost–benefit considerations, service life extension, and practical implement ability. The review highlights that no single mitigation strategy is universally optimal; instead, integrated approaches combining multiple techniques provide the most effective long-term protection. Key research gaps are identified in the areas of long-term performance monitoring, internal corrosion detection, and durability modeling under combined environmental actions. The findings of this study provide valuable insights for the design, maintenance, and rehabilitation of CFST structures, contributing to the development of more durable and sustainable infrastructure systems. Full article

Drawing on a panel of Chinese A-share listed firms covering 2007 to 2024, we construct a firm-level measure of climate risk exposure based on textual analysis of annual reports. Employing a three-way fixed effects model combined with endogeneity corrections and a battery of robustness checks, we empirically identify the causal effect of climate risk on the cost of debt, as well as its underlying transmission mechanisms and heterogeneous boundary conditions. Our analysis yields three core findings. First, climate risk exerts a statistically significant and economically meaningful positive effect on the cost of debt, indicating that greater climate risk exposure amplifies firms’ debt financing burdens. Second, the impact operates through two parallel transmission channels. On the one hand, climate risk erodes corporate financial fundamentals by disrupting production and operations and elevating default risk. On the other hand, it damages non-financial reputation by triggering downgrades in Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) ratings and weakening long-term financing credibility. Third, the relationship between climate risk and the cost of debt is significantly moderated by firm- and industry-level characteristics: high-quality information disclosure attenuates the adverse financing impact of climate risk, while affiliation with heavily polluting industries strengthens this positive association. These findings remain robust to alternative measures of climate risk and the cost of debt, alternative clustering specifications, high-dimensional interactive fixed effects, and subsample tests with restricted sample windows. To address endogeneity concerns stemming from reverse causality and omitted variable bias, we adopt two complementary identification strategies: using one-period lagged values of the core explanatory variable and conducting instrumental variable estimation via two-stage least squares (2SLS). Estimates from both approaches remain statistically and economically consistent with our baseline results. Further heterogeneity analyses show that the cost-increasing effect of climate risk is more pronounced for firms without ESG fund ownership, non-state-owned enterprises (non-SOEs), and firms located in non-eastern regions of China. Overall, this study provides novel firm-level evidence on the microeconomic consequences of climate risk in emerging economies, develops a dual transmission framework integrating financial fundamentals and non-financial reputation, and offers actionable implications for policymakers, financial institutions, and firms to improve climate risk governance and optimize the financing environment amid the low-carbon transition. Full article

Molten carbonate salt nanofluids have emerged as a promising approach to improve the power generation efficiency of next-generation concentrated solar power (CSP) systems due to their enhanced thermophysical properties at high temperatures. However, corrosion upon salt nanofluids remains a key challenge for the use of cost-effective steels as construction materials in CSP applications. In this work, the corrosion behavior of AISI 301LN stainless steel exposed to molten carbonate salt nanofluids containing 1.0 wt.% SiO₂ nanoparticles with <20 nm and <50 nm has been studied. Corrosion tests were conducted in a static Li₂CO₃-Na₂CO₃-K₂CO₃ molten salt mixture at 600 °C for 1000 h. The oxide scales formed after exposure to the three nanofluids and the base salt were compared. The results revealed that the corrosion rate of AISI 301LN steel on molten salt was reduced by the addition of SiO₂ nanoparticles. The incorporation of SiO₂ nanoparticles into the oxide scale leads to the formation of dense reticulated nanostructures composed of Si-containing oxides, respectively. This increases the hardness of the oxide scale and enhances its protective performance in molten salt, particularly when using SiO₂ nanoparticles with the smallest size (<20 nm). Full article

Last-mile delivery systems are under greater pressure to deliver cost-efficient, reliable, environmentally friendly, and resilient services amid operational challenges. Distance/cost is the usual optimization criterion for traditional vehicle routing methods, and factors related to disruptions, such as the delay frequency, delay severity, and delivery failure risk, are often treated separately or neglected. This study proposes a green-resilient last-mile delivery optimization framework that integrates operational costs, delivery delays, carbon emissions, and operational risk within a single multi-objective decision model. The proposed framework models the capacitated vehicle routing problem with time windows, accounting for vehicle capacity, service time commitments, fuel consumption, emission-level estimates, working hour limits, and lateness penalties and incorporating a disruption-based operational risk score. The risk score is based on the delay frequency, delay severity, and failure probability and can inform routing decisions based on efficiency and resilience. The framework is tested with a case study of urban last-mile delivery and compared with several benchmark scenarios: the current operational plan, a distance-based vehicle routing problem (VRP), a cost-based VRP, a green VRP, and a delay-aware vehicle routing problem with time windows (VRPTW). The results reveal balanced improvements in key performance indicators, in line with the proposed framework. It reduces the total distance by 35.11%, total operational cost by 34.01%, fuel consumption by 10.46%, CO₂ emissions by 9.34%, estimated late orders by 93.45%, and total delay minutes by 80.10%, and there are no working hour violations compared to the current case. Other sensitivity, weight, and ablation analyses illustrate the trade-offs among cost/service reliability/environmental goals and risk exposures. The results show that operational risk can be incorporated into the green last-mile routing problem to facilitate more comprehensive—and thus more robust and sustainable—delivery planning in the context of disruptions in urban environments. Full article

This paper evaluates whether hydrogen-based marine fuels were financially feasible in the European maritime sector in mid-2026 without subsidies, grants, contracts for difference, preferential carbon-price treatment, or other public subventions. A techno-economic model compares pure hydrogen fuel cells, hydrogen internal combustion, ammonia combustion and fossil marine fuels for general cargo ships, container ships and passenger liners. The model combines 2026 bunker quotations, fuel-energy properties, EU ETS exposure, FuelEU Maritime requirements, ammonia cost evidence and scenario assumptions for delivered renewable hydrogen. Results show that fossil-fuel-equivalent useful propulsion costs remain substantially lower than hydrogen and ammonia alternatives under a no-support baseline. Current EU policy narrows the gap but does not close it. The hypothesis is confirmed: in mid-2026, hydrogen-based propulsion is not commercially feasible without public support, except for exceptional pilots and premium fixed-route niches. Under the paper’s central scenarios, unsubsidised parity is unlikely before 2032–2035 for short routes and 2035–2040 for larger vessels. Green methanol is treated as a complementary hydrogen-derived pathway whose easier storage and handling may favour selected services, although its lifecycle benefit depends on renewable hydrogen and a sustainable carbon source. Full article

Concrete proportioning in routine practice often relies on separate spreadsheets, code tables, and trial-batch records, making simultaneous control of strength, exposure resistance, workability, cost, and embodied carbon difficult. Although existing standards provide valuable guidance, a scientific and practical gap remains in converting fragmented provisions into an integrated workflow for performance-oriented and low-carbon mix design. This paper presents the EcoStruct platform, a thirteen-tab digital workflow for normal concrete mix design. The workflow integrates international guidance, including ACI 211.1, ACI durability provisions, EN 206, BS 8500, EN 197-1, ASTM C150, ASTM C33, ASTM C127/C128, EN 12620, EN 934-2, and DIN 1045-based aggregate gradation logic. The platform covers project definition, exposure limits, SCMs and admixtures, material characterization, target strength, aggregate grading, water–cement ratio, free-water demand, cement adjustment, absolute-volume aggregate calculation, performance prediction, laboratory trial, and reporting. A precast tunnel-lining segment was used to compare the platform with BRE and SP 23:1982. The platform mixture contained 440 kg/m³ cement and 190 kg/m³ water. Compared with BRE and SP 23:1982, it reduced free-water and cement demand while maintaining durability compliance and improving aggregate-skeleton continuity. Full article

Increasingly stringent regulations regarding climate policy and the sustainable development paradigm determine the transformation of contemporary multi-family housing typology, manifested by a growing share of single-aspect micro-apartments (units with exterior exposure on only one facade). This article identifies the phenomenon of the energy-efficiency paradox, wherein highly insulated buildings successfully trap winter heat but inadvertently escalate summer cooling demands. Consequently, the primary operational challenge becomes limiting excessive solar heat gains in summer, which directly translates into high cooling energy demand, rather than solely mitigating heat losses in winter. Sustainable construction requires moving beyond the narrowly defined reduction of envelope thermal transmittance towards holistic adaptation to climate change and ensuring adequate indoor environmental quality. The methodology is based on a coupled energy-economic analysis, evaluating thermal balances and their direct financial implications for end-users. The variant analysis of solar heat gains conducted for a reference 30 m² dwelling in Warsaw proves that architectural optimization should not be determined solely by short-term investment profit maximization. Effective engineering optimization in construction requires the implementation of a full building life cycle perspective. Unfavorable glazing orientation and the lack of cross-ventilation necessitate the use of energy-intensive air-conditioning systems, which directly increases the building’s carbon footprint and generates hidden operating costs (differences reaching over 145 PLN annually for heating and approximately 70 PLN for cooling). The findings highlight the necessity for a critical reevaluation of design priorities for compact apartments, integrating social justice (by reducing information asymmetry in the real estate market, where buyers are often unaware of these future cooling burdens) with long-term economic rationality and the resilience of the built environment to extreme weather events. Full article

Children who are exposed to lead may have extensive health problems, in particular intelligence deficits and developmental delays. Wide-reaching screening programs are essential to identify children in need of remediation and medical intervention. Lead exposure is most problematic in low- and middle-income countries, as well as in underserved populations in wealthier regions of the world. To increase accessibility, it is critical that screening tools are inexpensive, portable, and easy to use. Here we report a low-cost, handheld, sample-to-answer system for the detection of lead in whole blood samples. Our assay simultaneously lyses blood cells, liberates lead from hemoglobin, aggregates proteins and cellular debris, and separates the solubilized lead from the aggregate via a simple filtration device. Using a screen-printed carbon electrode, anodic stripping voltammetry with a low-cost potentiostat, and our sample-to-answer workflow, we achieved a limit of detection of 1.44 μg/dL, which is below the blood lead reference value established by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (3.5 μg/dL). We validated our system using pre-quantified reference samples from lead-exposed animals and demonstrated excellent agreement with our calibration curve, including for samples near the 3.5 μg/dL threshold. Full article

This work presents the design evolution, fabrication, and characterisation of an additively manufactured ring-type thermal airflow sensor for in-pipe flow monitoring, developed employing exclusively Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) additive manufacturing technology and a commercially available Carbon Nanotube (CNT)-enriched Biopolymer Polylactic Acid (PLA) composite filament. The design evolution proceeds through three progressive stages. In the first stage, a flat heater element is characterised through Constant-Current (CC) Joule heating experiments in order to derive the corresponding Temperature Coefficient of Resistance (TCR) and Thermal Resistance from the obtained experimental data. Consequently, a Finite Element Method (FEM) model implemented in COMSOL Multiphysics^® and calibrated with the extracted material parameters validates the experimental temperature–power relationship and predicts the convective cooling behaviour at various airflow velocities. In the second stage, the geometry is optimised by introducing a conductive trace with a reduced-cross-section central region; as a result, an equivalent thermal localisation is achieved at approximately 26% lower supplied power with respect to the initial heating element, enabled by the design freedom inherent in the FDM process. We should note that the specific sensing geometry can also be directly embedded into any 3D-printed structural component (e.g., a bracket or housing), enabling simultaneous local thermal heating and/or thermal monitoring together with structural functionality within a single printed part. In the third and final stage—the target device—a fully monolithic ring-type airflow sensor is directly integrated into a 3D-printed pipe segment during the printing process. Under constant-current excitation at 40 mA, the device exhibits a monotonically decreasing resistance with increasing airflow (ΔR ≈ 117 Ω over 0–4 m/s) due to convective cooling, while in a single flow-interruption cycle, approximately 79% of the flow-induced resistance change was recovered upon flow removal, with a residual offset of approximately 3% of the heated baseline. A coupled electrothermal FEM model of the device further supports the experimental response by comparing the simulated temperature rise with the values inferred from resistance measurements, while also clarifying the role of the effective internal convective cooling conditions imposed by the pipe geometry. Key features of the proposed device are low raw-consumables cost, fast on-site manufacturing employing a commercially available desktop 3D printer, monolithic construction free of wire-bonded interconnections, and simplicity, indicating its potential for flow monitoring and condition-based maintenance systems aboard vessels as well as in a wide range of industrial sectors. We should note that the present characterisation was performed under laboratory conditions employing a single prototype per design stage; the effects of humidity, salt exposure, vibration, temperature cycling, and material-batch variability remain to be assessed prior to shipboard deployment. Full article