Search Results (5,235)

Phosphorus is an essential and finite resource critical for global food production, yet its inefficient use and discharge from wastewater systems contribute to eutrophication and resource depletion. The transition from conventional wastewater treatment plants to water resource recovery facilities has intensified interest in technologies that enable phosphorus recovery within a circular economy framework. This review provides a critical and up-to-date synthesis of phosphorus recovery strategies from wastewater, with primary emphasis on struvite (MgNH₄PO₄·6H₂O) crystallization as one of the most mature and practically implemented recovery routes. The occurrence and chemical forms of phosphorus in wastewater streams are discussed alongside conventional approaches, such as enhanced biological phosphorus removal and chemical precipitation, in order to position struvite recovery within the broader phosphorus management landscape. In addition to struvite crystallization, selected competing and complementary recovery pathways, including electrochemical systems, biochar-assisted processes, and sludge ash recovery, are discussed to compare technological maturity, recovery potential, and practical applicability. Particular attention is given to reactor configurations, full-scale applications, and commercial technologies to assess operational reliability, recovery performance, and fertilizer product quality. Life-cycle assessment results and regulatory developments are also discussed to contextualize sustainability claims, technology selection, and market integration. The review identifies key technical and economic challenges, particularly regarding magnesium supply, competing ions, wastewater matrix effects, and the feasibility of mainstream application. Overall, controlled sidestream struvite crystallization appears to offer the most favorable balance between recovery efficiency, operational reliability, and fertilizer product quality under suitable plant conditions. Full article

The article presents a comparative thermodynamic and economic analysis of nuclear power plants using high-temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGRs) and small modular pressurized water reactors (SMRs). HTGRs, with their ability to achieve steam temperatures exceeding 650 °C, offer significantly higher electricity generation efficiency (approximately 52%) compared to SMRs and traditional PWRs, which achieve around 32%. The study underscores the importance of economic efficiency in investment decisions, noting that while SMRs are still in the conceptual phase, their future construction is uncertain, with realistic deployment expected by the late 2030s or early 2040s. The analysis highlights the superior thermodynamic performance of HTGRs due to their hierarchical dual-cycle gas–steam technology, compared to the single-cycle Clausius–Rankine process used in SMRs and PWRs. The paper contributes new insights into the comparative advantages and challenges of these nuclear technologies, particularly emphasizing the advanced safety features of HTGRs and the inherent design challenges associated with scaling down PWR technology for SMRs. Full article

Asphalt pavements are essential to modern transport infrastructure but remain highly dependent on virgin aggregates and petroleum-based binders, resulting in high energy demand and significant greenhouse gas emissions. In response, research has advanced recycled-material solutions and low-temperature asphalt technologies. However, sustainability is still often inferred from isolated environmental indicators, without consistent consideration of mechanical durability or economic feasibility throughout the life cycle. This review provides an integrated synthesis of sustainable asphalt mixtures by jointly examining recycling strategies, temperature-reduction processes (warm-mix, half-warm-mix, and cold-mix asphalt technologies), and their combined applications through an integrated performance–cost–environment perspective. The literature reveals substantial methodological fragmentation, with limited harmonisation of functional units, system boundaries, and allocation rules, which constrains cross-study comparability. Evidence indicates that reclaimed asphalt, recycled concrete aggregates, and steel slag can maintain or improve rutting resistance, stiffness, and moisture durability while enabling material cost savings of approximately 5–68%. Temperature-reduction technologies further achieve significant energy and GHG reductions in the production phase (20–70%), with integrated recycling–temperature-reduction systems showing the most consistent combined benefits. Overall, this review demonstrates that asphalt sustainability cannot be established through single-dimensional assessments but requires harmonised life-cycle frameworks that explicitly link environmental gains to mechanical performance, durability, and economic viability. Full article

SARS-CoV-2 infection has emerged worldwide. To reduce the number of cases and limit the transmission of the virus, health and local authorities have implemented several strategies. Mass screening is a key strategy for mitigating the damage caused by this pandemic. This strategy is based on the use of qRT-PCR and pooling to diagnose SARS-CoV-2 infection. The present work explores the performance and limitations of this strategy for the molecular diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Three important technical aspects were retained: the comparison of two commercial extraction kits (BIGFISH and BIOER), the simulation of a non-compliant nasopharyngeal swab, and the evaluation of the pooling strategy. A total of 97 SARS-CoV-2-positive nasopharyngeal samples were used. The comparison of the two extraction kits was based on threshold cycles (Ct) values. The results showed a significant difference (IC = 95%) in the Ct of the nucleocapsid gene (N; p = 0.0000384) and RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp; p = 0.0254). However, no significant difference was observed between the Internal Control gene (IC; p = 0.0723) and Envelope gene (E; p = 0.150). The Ct values resulting from the BIGFISH extraction kit were generally lower than those obtained from BIOER. In terms of sensitivity, the RT-qPCR technique allows for the detection of viral RNA up to 10⁻³ as a dilution factor. This study demonstrated that the pooling strategy is an effective diagnostic technique. Positive samples remained detectable even in pools of 1000 or even 10,000 samples. However, the size of the pool under diagnostic conditions should not exceed a limit that must be dynamically adapted to prevalence to ensure economic and analytical viability. Full article

A vital region for China’s water resource storage and ecological balance maintenance, the Yangtze River Basin is strategically significant for maintaining regional water security and promoting long-term social and economic development. Precipitation is the main driver of the hydrological cycle. In order to address current problems with the basin’s ecological environment and water supplies, comprehensive analyses of multi-source precipitation data are necessary. They provide an essential scientific basis for evaluating the sustainability of water resources in the Yangtze River Basin in the context of climate change. Most existing precipitation fusion studies utilize only a limited number of datasets and do not fully consider the independence among different data sources, which leads to less-than-ideal fusion accuracy and assessment metrics. This paper employs the Triple Collocation (TC) method to evaluate and fuse multiple precipitation datasets over a 19-year period from 2003 to 2021, with the aim of enhancing precipitation accuracy in the Yangtze River Basin. The Multi-Source Weighted-Ensemble Precipitation (MSWEP) precipitation data were found to have the highest accuracy among seven datasets, with a Correlation Coefficient (CC), Relative Bias (Rbias), and Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) of 0.907, −0.027, and 25.930 mm, respectively. The “MSWEP–PERSIANN–NOAH (MPN)” fusion was shown to be the best using the Multiplicative Triple Collocation (MTC) method in conjunction with cross-error analysis. Compared to MSWEP alone, it improved CC by 0.8% and decreased RMSE by 3.8%, with matching spatial-grid CC and RMSE improvements of 1.2% and 1.8%, respectively. Further spatiotemporal analysis of the fused data increase detection capabilities for short-term flood and waterlogging occurrences and provide better knowledge of basin water-resource status. Full article

Neosporosis, caused by N. caninum, is an emerging protozoan disease responsible for significant economic losses in the global dairy and meat industries, primarily due to abortion in cattle. Dogs serve as both definitive and intermediate hosts and play a key role in the parasite transmission cycle. Currently, effective control strategies remain limited, partly due to insufficient information on infection status. In Vietnam, data on N. caninum infection are scarce and mainly limited to cattle and buffalo. In this study, an indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (iELISA) based on recombinant NcGRA4 protein was applied and evaluated for the detection of anti-N. caninum antibodies in dogs. A total of 142 shelter dogs from Hanoi, northern Vietnam, were tested to determine seroprevalence. The NcGRA4-based iELISA detected an overall seroprevalence of 28.87% (41/142), whereas the indirect fluorescent antibody test (iFAT) showed a lower prevalence of 14.08% (20/142), indicating substantial exposure to N. caninum among shelter dogs in this region. Using iFAT as the reference method, the NcGRA4-based iELISA demonstrated a sensitivity of 90.00%, a specificity of 81.15%, and an overall accuracy of 82.39%. These findings indicate that the NcGRA4-based iELISA is a suitable screening tool for seroepidemiological surveillance of N. caninum infections in dogs. Univariable and multivariable logistic regression analyses showed no significant associations between N. caninum seropositivity and the investigated variables, including age, sex, breed, and housing conditions. This study also provides the first serological evidence of canine exposure to N. caninum in Vietnam. Full article

This article integrates sustainability principles into a three-echelon supply chain for deteriorating items with imperfect quality, consisting of a single vendor, a third-party logistics enterprise (3PL), and a single buyer, with a focus on balancing economic efficiency with environmental responsibility. The vendor is assumed to operate an imperfect production system, resulting in products of imperfect quality. The 3PL undertakes all transportation activities, while the buyer conducts a quality inspection process to detect defective items, which is subject to Type-I and Type-II errors. Aside from that, the inventory model also assesses carbon emissions arising from various operational activities including energy usage during production, warehousing, and disposal processes, and fuel consumption in transportation, for which the above members of the supply chain are accountable. Afterward, carbon management policies such as a carbon tax and carbon cap-and-trade are considered to regulate total supply chain emissions. The objective is to minimize the joint expected total cost by simultaneously optimizing shipment frequencies and the replenishment cycle for the buyer within carbon emission constraints. An iterative solution procedure is developed to address the problem. A numerical example and sensitivity analysis are provided to demonstrate the model’s applicability and to explore the influence of critical parameters. Finally, the study presents managerial insights, along with conclusions and recommendations for future research directions. Full article

Textile wastewater remains one of the most challenging industrial effluents to remediate due to its intense and persistent coloration, high organic load, elevated salinity, and fluctuating pH and the presence of recalcitrant dye structures and auxiliary chemicals. Conventional physicochemical and biological treatments frequently achieve incomplete removal, generate secondary wastes, or fail under high-salt and toxic dye matrices. Advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) provide molecular-level degradation via reactive oxygen species (ROS), yet their deployment is often constrained by narrow operating windows, catalyst instability, chemical/energy demand, and scale-up limitations. In this context, metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) have emerged as tunable porous catalytic platforms that integrate adsorption and oxidation within a single architecture through controllable metal nodes, functional linkers, and engineered pore environments. This critical review reimagines textile effluent treatment through the lens of MOF-based hybrid catalysts, synthesizing progress across Fenton/photo-Fenton catalysis, photocatalytic MOFs, persulfate activation, and MOF-derived/composite systems. Mechanistic pathways are discussed by linking pollutant enrichment, cyclic redox reactions, charge-transfer processes, and ROS-driven degradation toward mineralization, with emphasis on the distinction between rapid decolorization and true organic removal. A critical comparison highlights how hybridization improves charge transport, stability, and catalyst recovery, while persistent gaps remain in hydrolytic robustness, metal leaching control, intermediate toxicity assessment, real-wastewater validation, continuous-flow reactor integration, and techno-economic feasibility. Finally, the review outlines actionable research directions, including water-stable and defect-engineered MOFs, immobilized and structured catalysts, solar-driven operation, standardized performance metrics, and life-cycle-informed design, to accelerate translation toward scalable and sustainable textile wastewater remediation. By bridging material chemistry with reactor-level feasibility and sustainability assessment, this review provides an implementation-oriented perspective for next-generation textile wastewater treatment. Full article

Maintenance is crucial for the durability of the existing building stock and should be perceived as an opportunity to improve the built environment. The implementation of thermal retrofitting measures to the building’s envelope enhances global energy performance, which is economically and environmentally beneficial. Building-related energy consumption during the operation phase is key to tackling carbon neutrality and climate change. Introducing thermal retrofitting within the context of maintenance planning can be cost-optimizing, as it reveals the technical–economic synergy between building pathology and energy efficiency. Maintenance activities and energy demand throughout the building’s service life influence life-cycle costs (LCCs). Decision-making based on LCC awareness is an advantage for owners. This study discusses the impact of implementing an optimal retrofitting solution (ORS), according to different maintenance strategies, on the LCC of an existing single-family home. The ORS comprises the following measures: adding an external thermal insulation composite system (ETICS) to external walls, extruded polystyrene (XPS) panels to the roof, and replacing the existing windows with others with improved thermal performance. The three maintenance strategies involve different complexity levels, concerning the type, number and timing of activities. Moving beyond isolated assessments, this study develops an integrated framework that bridges based on two existing background methodologies, involving optimal thermal retrofitting and condition-based maintenance planning, which, combined with new research, enable the assessment of maintenance, energy and global LCC for a time horizon of 100 years. The evaluation of energy-related LCC is based on simulations. The results indicate that these costs represent the majority of the global LCC. The ORS has a considerable positive impact on energy and global LCC. Adopting a maintenance strategy characterized by fewer planned activities and an earlier schedule of replacement interventions, which determines the implementation of the retrofitting measures, is better in terms of LCC savings. Full article

Anaerobic digestion (AD) plays an important role in the circular bioeconomy by converting organic waste into renewable methane and nutrient-rich fertilizer. However, consistent, high-quality biomethane production is hindered by four main factors: hydrolysis limitations, fluctuating feedstock quality, microbial instability, and the high cost/energy demand of purification. This review explores three key areas that improve biomethane production: (i) process intensification (pretreatments and advanced reactors), (ii) microbial regulation through additives, and (iii) biogas upgrading for pipeline use. Anaerobic digestion can be greatly improved by combining thermal or hybrid pretreatments, staged digestion, high-solids technology, and electrochemical systems. These methods speed up hydrolysis and help the system handle higher amounts of organic material more effectively. However, actual performance benefits depend on specific substrate characteristics, heat integration, and control complexity. Optimizing the C:N ratio, buffering capacity, and trace-element supplementation, while simultaneously diluting toxic inhibitors, makes co-digestion an effective and adaptable approach to enhancing anaerobic digestion processes. Additives like carbon, iron nanoparticles, enzymes, and buffers can optimize digestion, but their performance is highly dependent on dosage and substrate. Additionally, they lack validation in long-term, industrial-scale applications. Conventional physicochemical techniques continue to be standard for generating high-quality biomethane, but biological methanation and microalgal systems are playing a growing role in integrating Power-to-Gas technology and using CO₂ efficiently. Critical research needs to focus on four areas: (1) standardized reporting metrics, (2) AI-enabled monitoring and control, (3) coupled techno-economic and life-cycle analysis (TEA-LCA), and (4) long-term pilot or full-scale validation. Overall, comprehensive optimization of the entire flow is more effective than improving isolated parts. Full article

This study develops a Life-Cycle Sustainability Framework for circular business models in the context of post-war economic reconstruction and sustainable value chain transformation. Ukraine is used as the main case study due to its post-war reconstruction context and the need for resource-efficient economic recovery strategies. Under conditions of disrupted supply systems, resource constraints, and structural economic change, circular economy principles are conceptualized as strategic mechanisms for enhancing resilience, resource efficiency, and long-term competitiveness rather than solely as environmental policy instruments. Building on a structured hierarchy of circular business models aligned with product life-cycle stages, the framework emphasizes value retention through functional and usage extension beyond material recovery. The framework includes a hierarchical classification of 12 circular business models and a sustainability evaluation approach based on four criteria (K1–K4), which allow for the comparative assessment of circular business models and their combinations across life-cycle stages. Using secondary statistical data and policy review as analytical inputs, the study identifies sectors with high potential for circular transformation and sustainable investment, including agriculture, energy, industry, construction, and logistics. The results indicate that circular business models applied at early life-cycle stages, such as reuse, repair, and remanufacturing, provide the highest potential for reducing resource intensity and improving long-term economic sustainability, while recycling and energy recovery play a supporting role. These findings highlight how life-cycle-oriented circular strategies can support sustainable reconstruction pathways, strengthen international cooperation, and inform policy and managerial decision-making in transitional economic contexts. Full article

Traditional rural residences are distributed across diverse climate zones in China, resulting in significant variations in their carbon emissions. Meanwhile, lightweight steel assembled rural residences are increasingly becoming more widely used, but unfortunately, their adaptability in different climate zones of China has not been fully recognized. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate the environmental impact and economic cost of lightweight steel assembled rural residences in the life cycle. Furthermore, the climate adaptability of lightweight steel assembled rural residences was explored, and a dual-objective optimization of life-cycle carbon emissions and the cost of unit carbon emission reduction was carried out. In this study, representative traditional rural residences from five climate zones of China were chosen as the research objective. At first, carbon emissions and the potential of carbon emission reduction in the life cycle of rural residences were investigated, including the production stage, construction stage, operation stage, and demolition stage, and the cost of unit carbon emission reduction for lightweight steel assembled rural residences was analyzed. Furthermore, the rural residences with the greatest optimization potential for carbon emission reduction were selected to find the optimal design parameters based on the entropy-weighted TOPSIS decision-making method. The results indicate that the production and operation stages have the greatest potential for carbon emission reduction in rural residences in the life cycle, while the construction and demolition stages contribute only marginal reductions. Furthermore, life-cycle carbon emissions can be reduced by 3.7% to 59.44% for lightweight steel assembled rural residences, and lightweight steel assembled rural residences for Siheyuan are the most suitable candidates for priority promotion, with the cost of unit carbon emission reduction being 0.099 CNY/kgCO₂e. Moreover, lightweight steel assembled rural residences for MHJ demonstrate the best performance considering the objectives of life-cycle carbon emissions and the cost of unit carbon emission reduction, while NCVD performed the worst. For NCVD, with the optimal design parameters, life-cycle carbon emissions are reduced by 115.84 kgCO₂e m⁻², while the cost of unit carbon emission reduction increases by only 0.158 CNY/kgCO₂e. Full article

Freeze–thaw damage significantly reduces the performance and durability of airport pavements in cold regions. Traditional assessment methods, such as the F300 freeze–thaw test, are time-consuming and hinder rapid optimisation of mix design. In addition, previous studies have mostly relied on long-term laboratory testing and have evaluated phase-change concrete (PCC) independently, without considering synergistic effects. These approaches lack fast, synergy-aware predictive capability and interpretable tools for mix proportion design, resulting in a gap between laboratory research and practical engineering applications. To address this issue, this study proposes an intelligent and explainable framework for predicting freeze–thaw damage and guiding mix design of steel fibre-reinforced phase-change concrete (SF–PCC). A boundary-controlled experimental programme was first conducted, varying steel fibre (SF) content from 0 to 1.2% and phase-change material (PCM) content from 0 to 12% under fixed mixture conditions. The freeze–thaw test results were recorded sequentially and used to construct a supervised learning dataset. Then, an XGBoost model was developed to predict two key durability indicators: relative dynamic modulus of elasticity (RDEM) and mass loss. SHAP (SHapley Additive exPlanations) analysis was further applied to quantify feature importance and interaction effects. The model achieved high predictive accuracy (R² = 0.9938 for mass loss and R² = 0.9935 for RDEM) under controlled experimental conditions. After 300 freeze–thaw cycles, the reference mix exhibited an RDEM of 61.2%, while optimised configurations showed improved performance. The economical design (9% PCM + 0.9% SF) achieved an RDEM of 66.8%, and the high-performance design (12% PCM + 1.2% SF) reached 72.6%. These results demonstrate that the proposed framework can effectively enhance durability and support rapid preliminary decision-making. The framework significantly accelerates freeze–thaw performance evaluation by enabling near-instant prediction and serves as an efficient supplementary tool for mix design optimisation alongside conventional laboratory testing. It also provides interpretable, data-driven insights for the design of freeze–thaw-resistant airport pavement concrete in cold regions. Full article

Shifting cultivation remains a primary farming system in Myanmar’s mountainous regions. However, population growth and economic pressures have disrupted its traditional balance. This study aimed to clarify historical land-use patterns and evaluate vegetation recovery in Lailenpi by integrating field surveys with multitemporal Sentinel-2 imagery from 2019 to 2025. We identified cultivation plots using NDVI differences and quantified recovery trajectories with a Bayesian hierarchical nonlinear model. Results confirmed that a systematic eight-year rotational cycle was maintained. However, the total cultivated area expanded from 0.93% to 3.13%, shifting toward steeper terrain. Bayesian modeling showed that canopy greenness recovered within 24 to 36 months. Despite this resilience, the shift to rugged terrain suggested mounting land-use pressure and soil degradation risks. These findings highlight the importance of combining field surveys with high-resolution monitoring to ensure the long-term ecological sustainability of tropical mountain regions. Full article

Aiming to improve cooling and dehumidification performance in air conditioning systems and to meet the trend toward environmentally friendly refrigerants, this study proposes a coupled system that combines a CO₂ transcritical refrigeration cycle (CTRC) with a liquid desiccant dehumidification cycle. The system takes advantage of high-grade waste heat from the exothermic side of the CTRC to drive the regenerating process of the liquid desiccant dehumidification. A cooling evaporator is adopted to cool indoor air, while another evaporator (i.e., Evaporator II) is utilized to cool the concentrated solution, improving dehumidification capacity and enabling independent control of sensible and latent heat loads. Through thermodynamic modeling and the exergy analysis model, a mathematical model of the system is developed to examine how key parameters (such discharge pressure and the CO₂ mass flow rate ratio in Evaporator II (λ)) affect performance and to analyze exergy loss features. Results show that the system’s coefficient of performance (COP) and dehumidification coefficient of performance (COP_deh) initially rise and then fall with increasing CTRC discharge pressure, achieving an optimal pressure of around 10,500 kPa (COP up to 4.32) under a specific working condition, surpassing those of standalone CTRC systems. Properly increasing λ enhances dehumidification capacity and energy efficiency, with a low specific dehumidification energy (SDE) of 0.2033 kWh/kg, indicating high economic efficiency. Most exergy losses occur in the CO₂-solution heat exchanger and dehumidifier (over 60% of total losses). The system’s maximum exergy efficiency reaches 12.4%, leaving room for further improvements. This coupled system offers an efficient, eco-friendly way for air conditioning in high-humidity environments, combining cooling and dehumidification with the potential for energy recovery. Full article