Search Results (195)

Purpose: This review aims to provide a theoretical basis and scientific reference for constructing environmentally friendly and economically feasible sustainable management systems for pharmaceutical pollution. Methods: This review discusses three synergistic mechanisms—“cascade degradation”, “symbiotic protection”, and “functional complementarity”—along with construction strategies including co-immobilization technology, engineered biofilms, and engineered bacteria modified via synthetic biology. Result: Synergistic platforms have achieved significant progress in treating various types of pharmaceutical pollutants, including antibiotics, anti-inflammatories and hormones, antiviral drugs and pesticides. Conclusions: The synergistic integration of enzymes and microorganisms achieves the unification of efficient catalysis and deep mineralization, opening up a new pathway for the remediation of pharmaceutical pollution. It also transforms theoretically existing concepts into operable treatment technologies. Full article

Amid the global renewable energy transition and rural revitalization, efficient organic waste use is critical for circular economy and carbon neutrality—core pillars of global sustainability. This study addresses unrecovered biogas slurry waste heat and biomass boiler thermal instability in Lindian County’s agricultural waste project. Using a small-scale experiment with MATLABR2023a simulations, it analyzed key parameters’ influence on mesophilic dry anaerobic fermentation, validating waste heat recovery and heat source optimization—measures closely aligned with sustainability goals. A novel multi-energy system for biogas fermentation integrated solar, biomass, and carbonization furnace residual heat. Experiments and simulations assessed heat demand, heating allocation, and economic performance. Findings showed 17-fold peak–valley heat demand fluctuations with seasonal patterns; 200 MJ load increments captured system dynamics. The multi-energy system outperformed single-energy setups in investment and operational costs. Optimal cost-effectiveness came with a 50%, 35%, and 15% heat load distribution among the solar, charcoal furnace, and biomass subsystems, cutting operational expenses. Results provide a robust framework for optimized biogas project design, aiding cost reduction, competitiveness, and circular economy and supporting China’s energy transition, rural revitalization, and the achievement of the sustainable development goals. Full article

Historic towns and villages face growing conservation pressures as globalization exposes tensions between universal standards and culturally specific practices. We compare Western frameworks associated with UNESCO and ICOMOS with China’s national regulations for historic settlement conservation, focusing on differing assumptions about heritage value, authenticity, and preservation–development trade-offs. Systematic text analysis of 17 foundational policy and doctrinal documents shows that the Venice Charter tradition prioritizes material authenticity and expert-led minimal intervention, whereas Chinese regulations operationalize spatial–visual integrity (traditional pattern and historic townscape) and explicit socio-economic integration. Building on this complementarity, we propose a provisional dual-track decision-support framework as a proof of concept. Track 1 safeguards material-authenticity cores for exceptional sites; Track 2 supports living-heritage cores for inhabited settlements; and hybrid designations accommodate mixed cases. Framework application unfolds in two stages: designation screening, followed by implementation-feasibility assessment, with a phased Track 2-Lite pathway for contexts in which binding participatory governance is not yet viable. Illustrated through four UNESCO World Heritage Sites using secondary data, the framework links cultural preservation with economic viability, climate adaptation, and community stewardship, while acknowledging that its thresholds and governance templates remain heuristic and require broader empirical validation. The approach supports SDG target 11.4 and SDG 13 and advances methodological and authenticity pluralism beyond simple preservation–development binaries. Full article

Cash dividends, as a tangible form of monetary distribution, serve as a fundamental mechanism for remunerating investors for their capital commitments. Beyond manifesting a firm’s commitment to fulfilling its social responsibilities toward shareholders, such distributions potentially shape corporate deliberations regarding accountability toward a broader spectrum of stakeholders. Drawing on behavioral explanations of corporate decision-making, this study examines the association between cash dividend payouts and environmental protection tax burdens among Chinese A-share listed companies from 2018 to 2023. The empirical results indicate a significant and robust negative association between corporate cash dividend payouts and environmental protection tax burdens. Mechanism analysis suggests that this cross-domain behavioral consistency is primarily channeled through the proactive fulfillment of corporate environmental responsibilities. Further inquiry reveals that both government environmental subsidies and media coverage exert positive moderating effects on this relationship. Notably, this observed negative association is particularly pronounced in firms characterized by lower executive environmental awareness, those operating in regions with lenient environmental regulations, companies navigating economic downturns, and those situated within low-pollution industries. This research provides novel evidence for the “governance complementarity” hypothesis, suggesting that financial accountability and environmental stewardship are mutually reinforcing rather than mutually exclusive. Furthermore, it offers a pioneering micro-behavioral perspective on how firms in emerging economies can harmonize shareholder wealth distribution with green transition objectives. Full article

Environmental economics and policy research has paid limited attention to interfirm spillover effects on firm-level performance. This study addresses this gap by distinguishing between the direct and spillover effects of environmental regulation and firm-specific resources on firm performance. Using panel data for Korean manufacturing firms, we estimate a dynamic spatial Durbin model (SDM) that accounts for both temporal persistence and spatial dependence. The empirical results provide clear evidence. First, environmental regulation and firm-specific factors—including intellectual capital, physical capital, and organizational slack—exert statistically significant positive direct effects on firms’ sustainable growth rate (SGR). Second, interaction effects are crucial: environmental regulation significantly enhances SGR when combined with organizational slack, highlighting the importance of internal resource conditions. Third, spatial spillover effects are identified only under specific configurations. Environmental regulation generates positive spillover effects when interacting jointly with intellectual capital, physical capital, and organizational slack, rather than as an independent driver. Similarly, physical capital produces spillover effects through its interactions with other firm resources. Importantly, these effects vary across firms. Spillover effects are more pronounced in firms with high absorptive capacity, whereas they are weaker or insignificant in firms with low absorptive capacity. Overall, the findings indicate that environmental regulation affects firm performance primarily through resource complementarities and conditional spatial interactions, offering policy implications for more targeted regulatory design Full article

Thermochemical/catalytic co-processing of biomass and solid wastes is a promising route for waste valorization, low-carbon energy recovery, and the co-production of fuels, chemicals, and carbon materials. Conventional pathways, including pyrolysis, gasification, liquefaction, and carbonization, provide the basic framework for mixed-feed conversion. Emerging routes, such as flash Joule heating, microwave-assisted conversion, plasma processing, supercritical water treatment, solar-driven systems, and machine-learning-assisted optimization, further expand opportunities for process intensification and selective upgrading. Owing to feedstock complementarity, including hydrogen donation from plastics, catalytic effects of ash minerals, and interactions among reactive intermediates, co-processing can enhance deoxygenation, hydrogen generation, aromatization, and carbon utilization. Major challenges remain, however, including feedstock heterogeneity, reactor scale-up, catalyst stability, and the limited transferability of laboratory-scale synergy to realistic waste streams. Future progress should therefore focus on continuous validation, mechanistic clarification, and integrated techno-economic, life-cycle, and data-driven assessments. Full article

In bioleaching processes, the use of microbial consortia establishes a favourable environment that supports the growth and activity of multiple microorganisms, thereby enhancing their synergistic interactions during leaching. Mineral dissolution efficiency is consistently higher in consortia than in monocultures. Acidithiobacillus thiooxidans and Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans exhibit metabolic complementarity and synchrony, including interactions with thermophilic microorganisms. Bioleaching is typically conducted under highly acidic conditions (pH 1–2), where microorganisms utilize essential resources such as nutrients and oxygen, while tolerating elevated concentrations of heavy metals. This review aims to examine the characteristics and current applications of microbial consortia, with particular emphasis on their interactions with heavy metals, the behaviour of their exopolysaccharides (EPS) under toxic conditions, their role in bioremediation across diverse environmental systems, and their potential for industrial implementation. Microbial consortia represent a high-value biotechnological tool in both mining and environmental remediation. Their synergistic interactions enable enhanced efficiency in the bioleaching of sulphide minerals, promoting the mobilization of both economically valuable and contaminant metals, and significantly outperforming individual cultures. Consequently, microbial consortia constitute a versatile, resilient, and eco-efficient platform for metal recovery and the mitigation of environmental liabilities. This review focuses on the applications of bacterial consortia in bioleaching processes and highlights their potential for emerging and future use. Full article

The stochastic and intermittent characteristics of renewable energy pose significant challenges to energy utilization and power system stability. The reversible solid oxide cell (RSOC), as an emerging multi-energy conversion technology, exhibits high efficiency in both electrolysis and power generation modes, offering a promising solution to renewable energy integration and energy supply issues. However, RSOC performance degrades over time, and its average efficiency decay rate directly influences capacity investment decisions and day-ahead scheduling strategies. To address this, a comprehensive energy system model considering RSOC capacity is developed, with a detailed representation of each subsystem. A bi-level optimization framework is then proposed, where the upper level minimizes system investment and operation costs, and the lower level optimizes day-ahead scheduling costs. The model explicitly accounts for RSOC efficiency degradation and lifetime attenuation. Particle swarm optimization is applied to determine the optimal capacity configuration. Case studies demonstrate that the proposed model enhances system economics, promotes multi-energy complementarity, and prolongs RSOC lifetime, providing theoretical and technical support for the planning and operation of integrated energy systems with RSOC. Full article

The countries in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) significantly influence global carbon emissions, and the spatial correlation and driving mechanisms of their emissions are crucial for regional emission reduction and global climate governance. This study constructs a carbon emission spatial correlation network, where links represent pairwise spatial correlations derived from a modified gravity model, using data from 54 BRI countries (2011–2020). It applies social network analysis (SNA) to examine the network structure and uses the Temporal Exponential Random Graph Model (TERGM) to identify influencing factors. The main findings are as follows: (1) The BRI carbon emission network has become more interconnected and cohesive, with stronger regional connectivity and reduced inequality. (2) The network shows a core–periphery structure with notable spatial association patterns. Countries like Qatar, Israel, India, China, and the UAE have rapidly established carbon emission links, positioning them at the core due to their high connectivity and influence. (3) The network displays temporal dependence, with reciprocity associated with stronger mutual connections and transitivity associated with more cohesive network structures. Technological innovation and industrial structure optimization are positively associated with the formation of carbon emission connections, while energy structure and foreign investment are negatively associated with it. Economic development and technological innovation are associated with a country’s greater involvement in carbon emission connections, and countries with similar urbanization rates, energy, and industrial structures, but large economic disparities are more likely to form carbon emission associations, reflecting potential complementarities in the network structure. Full article

As the global energy transition accelerates, clean energy development has surged. However, accurately modeling correlations and uncertainties of hydro, wind, and photovoltaic energy remains challenging in long-term scheduling for energy complementarity. This study employs Latin hypercube sampling and Cholesky decomposition to capture the temporal correlations of water runoff, wind, and photovoltaic resources. It generates numerous scenarios for uncertainty simulation. The scenario set is reduced based on probability distance while maintaining a high-fidelity approximation. A stochastic dual-objective model is proposed for long-term multi-energy complementary system scheduling (LMCS), aiming to maximize expected revenue considering carbon emission costs while ensuring minimum power output guarantees. An evolutionary algorithm—namely, an orthogonal multi-population evolutionary (OMPE) algorithm based on orthogonal design and a multi-population search framework—is introduced, along with constraint-handling strategies. Three annual-regulation hydropower stations in the Hongshui River Basin serve as a case study. The experimental results indicate that generated scenarios capture temporal characteristics with high accuracy. The proposed algorithm efficiently solves the LMCS problem, achieving average increases of 5.46% and 3.89% in revenue and minimal output compared to benchmarks. The validation results demonstrate that orthogonalization-based initialization, recombination operators, and dominance rules significantly enhance OMPE performance. Sensitivity analysis indicates that economic efficiency and risk trade-offs can be adjusted by varying scenario numbers. Full article

With the acceleration of the global energy transition, the photovoltaic industry has become a significant force in the promotion of green development, and photovoltaic raw materials play a crucial role in this process. In this paper, 177 countries during the period of 2001 to 2024 were taken as the research subjects, with a focus on polysilicon and silicon wafers as components of upstream photovoltaic raw materials. Through a combination of the evolutionary analysis of nodes, the overall structure, and the three-dimensional structure with an exponential random graph model, the evolution and dynamic mechanisms of the global photovoltaic raw material trade network are explored. The study reveals the following: (1) The global PV raw material trade volume tended to increase from 2001 to 2024. (2) The global photovoltaic raw material trade network showed a tendency towards the “enhanced dominance of core countries and denser trade connections,” with the trade volume between core countries continuously expanding and the network density, average clustering coefficient, and connection efficiency increasing annually, which is a reflection of the globalization and regional cooperation of the global photovoltaic industry. (3) From the weighted out-degree and in-degree ranking evolution of the global photovoltaic raw materials trade network, it can be seen that China consolidated its core position, while Southeast Asian countries tended to transfer their processing and manufacturing links. The status of the United States and traditional industrial powers gradually declined, which is a reflection of the restructuring of the global industrial chain along with regional geopolitical agglomeration effects. (4) Internal attributes such as the national economic level, population size, and urbanization rate, as well as external network effects such as common language and geographical proximity, significantly influence the formation path of the photovoltaic raw material trade network. Moreover, the network exhibits distinct heterogeneous complementarity mechanisms and path dependence characteristics, with a structural evolution that tends toward stability and cooperative relationships showing significant time inertia. Overall, the global trade volume of photovoltaic raw materials continues to grow, and the core positions of major countries such as China, the United States, and Germany remain prominent but show a transitional trend towards Southeast Asian countries. The strengthening of the level of coordination and cooperation among global photovoltaic raw material producers to ensure supply chain stability, promote resource sharing and technological progress, and achieve the sustainable development of green energy policies is necessary. Full article

Inland ports play a strategic role in enhancing multimodal connectivity and promoting sustainable freight transport within European corridors. However, the drivers of inland port development remain insufficiently understood, particularly with respect to nonlinear dynamics, interaction effects, and regional heterogeneity. This study investigates the socio-economic, infrastructural, and spatial determinants of inland port throughput using an interpretable machine learning framework. An XGBoost model is built up to estimate eighteen ports’ throughput along the Romanian Danube, over the period 2010–2024. SHAP (Shapley Additive Explanations) values are employed to quantify global importance, nonlinear marginal effects, and interaction structures. Results show that spatial accessibility and road infrastructure are the most influential drivers, while economic sectoral structure and road infrastructure exert nonlinear and scale-dependent effects. Interaction analysis reveals that inland port development is synergy-driven rather than additive, with the strongest complementarities observed between spatial accessibility, multimodal infrastructure, and sectoral structure. Additionally, Kruskal–Wallis tests on SHAP contributions indicate significant heterogeneity across port administrations, suggesting that governance and regional context modulate the realization of economic and infrastructural potential. The findings contribute to port–hinterland interaction analysis by demonstrating that inland port performance emerges from multi-scale, nonlinear, and regionally mediated dynamics. Methodologically, the study illustrates the value of interpretable machine learning for transport systems research. Policy implications emphasize coordinated multimodal investments, accessibility enhancement, and region-specific development strategies to strengthen inland waterway integration within the European transport sector. Full article

Remote off-grid microgrids are often locked into diesel-backed operation because renewable variability creates multi-day and seasonal energy gaps that short-duration batteries cannot economically bridge. This work examines how renewable hydrogen can complement batteries and dispatchable biomass to push an existing hybrid microgrid toward near-autonomous, low-carbon operation, while remaining robust under future electrification demands. The analysis is based on real operational load insights from a remote off-grid system, combined with techno-economic optimization in HOMER Pro. The examined architecture includes PV panels, battery energy storage, a biomass CHP unit, and a diesel generator as backup; the hydrogen pathway additionally incorporates an electrolysis, storage and a PEMFC. Three scenarios are considered: a baseline PV/BAT configuration, an intermediate PV/BAT/BIO configuration that strengthens dispatchable renewable supply and short-term flexibility, and a PV/BAT/BIO/H₂ configuration targeting an increase in renewable energy penetration (REP). Results show that hydrogen integration shifts the system from curtailment-limited, diesel-supported operation to storage-enabled operation: surplus renewable production that would otherwise be curtailed is converted into hydrogen and later dispatched during prolonged deficits, enabling deep diesel displacement without compromising reliability. Hydrogen-enabled configurations achieve 90–99% REP, reduced diesel consumption, and lower CO₂ emissions, primarily by converting curtailed surplus into storable hydrogen. A rule-based EMS highlights technology complementarity across timescales, with batteries providing diurnal balancing and hydrogen covering longer deficits, which also reduces battery cycling stress. Overall, the study clarifies key design trade-offs, especially the need for coordinated PV expansion and storage sizing, and illustrates how a multi-storage portfolio can support high renewable penetration in such systems. Full article

Dual-source heat pump systems combining photovoltaic-thermal (PVT) and air-source technologies have attracted considerable research interest due to their energy complementarity. Based on the climatic characteristics of the Dalian region, this study conducted field measurements and data analysis on a developed dual-source heat pump system incorporating three adaptive operational modes: (1) PVT mode, (2) PVT/air dual-source mode, and (3) photovoltaic (PV)/air-source mode. Compared to Mode (3), Mode (1) achieves a 5.76% higher heating capacity and an 11.56% greater electrical efficiency. Meanwhile, Mode (2) demonstrates a 12.23% increase in heating capacity, and a 9.14% improvement in electrical efficiency relative to Mode (3). A data-driven methodology is provided to quantify the system’s evaporation temperature, the thermal efficiency of PVT mode, and the coefficient of performance (COP) of the PVT heat pump. The economic assessment demonstrates that the proposed dual-source heat pump system achieves a heating cost as low as RMB 0.1125/kWh and a payback period of 6.4 years, indicating favorable economic benefits. This study provides fundamental data and computational methods for the optimized operation of the PVT/air dual-source heat pump. Full article

China’s power sector is undergoing a complicated transformation characterized by intricate dependence on the dominant coal infrastructure and abundant renewable energy resources. This study assesses China’s carbon-neutral transition pathways for the period of 2024–2060 by using the “Establish Before Breaking” principle within a policy-informed, high-resolution energy system modeling framework. To examine the technological, economic, and environmental trade-offs of various carbon-neutral strategies, four scenarios (Reference (REF), Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), Renewable-Based (REB), and Integrated (ING)) were developed, and their impacts were assessed through the application of the Low Emission Analysis Platform and the Next Energy Modeling (LEAP–NEMO) model. The results reveal that the ING scenario represents the most feasible and policy-consistent pathway, achieving an 88% renewable electricity share and a total installed capacity of approximately 8000 gigawatts (GW) by 2060. This pathway relies on a dual-track strategy that combines accelerated renewable deployment—supported by geographical complementarity and multi-regional Power-to-X (PtX) systems—with the strategic stabilization of conventional generation assets. The findings further demonstrate that retaining a small but critical share of flexible coal-CCS (0.2–0.5%) and nuclear capacity is necessary to address sub-daily variability, mitigate duck-curve effects, and ensure power system reliability under high renewable penetration. This integrated approach offers a systematic pathway for deep decarbonization within China’s unique energy context, ensuring a just, equitable, and sustainable transition. Full article