Search Results (576)

Ports play a pivotal role in global trade but are also associated with significant environmental and social challenges. Despite growing research on green ports, existing studies remain fragmented, with limited integration between technological, environmental, and governance perspectives within the blue economy framework. This review examines the transition from green port initiatives toward integrated blue-economy-oriented port systems by synthesizing recent advances in sustainable maritime infrastructure, smart port technologies, renewable energy integration, and policy frameworks. The analysis reveals three major findings. First, ports are increasingly evolving into energy-integrated hubs, with leading examples adopting shore power systems, renewable energy microgrids, and hydrogen-based infrastructure, thereby contributing to emissions reductions. Second, digitalization through artificial intelligence, IoT, and data-driven logistics significantly enhances operational efficiency, reduces energy consumption, and improves real-time decision-making. Third, effective governance frameworks that combine regulatory measures and incentive-based instruments are critical to accelerating sustainability transitions while ensuring economic competitiveness. In addition, the review highlights the growing integration of biodiversity conservation, marine pollution mitigation, and community engagement into port management strategies, reflecting a shift toward ecosystem-based approaches. Overall, the findings demonstrate that ports are transitioning from conventional logistics hubs into integrated socio-technical systems that enable low-carbon maritime transport while supporting inclusive and resilient coastal development. Full article

The electric vehicle (EV) battery industry has become a strategic pillar of the low-carbon transition, with far-reaching implications for industrial competitiveness and sustainability. This paper compares the policy mixes governing EV batteries in the EU and China and examines how different approaches shape technological innovation, industrial development, and export performance. A qualitative comparative case study is conducted, combining content analysis of core policy and regulatory documents with descriptive indicators on EV deployment, patenting activity, manufacturing capacity, and international trade. The analysis identifies two distinct but partly complementary policy models. The EU relies on innovation-driven and regulation-based instruments, coupling large research and development programs with stringent sustainability and circular-economy requirements; this model is associated with stronger performance in regulatory upgrading, collaborative innovation, and sustainability-oriented governance. China emphasizes demand expansion, large-scale fiscal support, and long-term industrial planning, which has accelerated capacity build-up, cost reductions, supply-chain integration, and manufacturing-based export competitiveness. The findings show that these contrasting policy mixes generate different technological trajectories and value-chain configurations, while both contribute to strengthening strategic competitiveness in the EV battery sector. More broadly, the study demonstrates that policy effectiveness depends less on any single instrument than on the coherence of the overall policy mix. It concludes that effective EV battery strategies should combine strong innovation incentives with mechanisms that support industrial scaling, supply-chain resilience, and high environmental standards. Full article

Improving environmental sustainability while maintaining economic viability is a major challenge for Mediterranean cereal production, where conventional systems are associated with high input use, elevated greenhouse gas emissions, and strong cost pressures. Although Conservation Agriculture (CA) and Precision Agriculture (PA) are widely promoted as promising solutions, evidence on their combined environmental and economic performance under real farming conditions remains limited. This study evaluated CA, PA, and their combined application (CPA) in winter cereal systems in Greece, using three years of farmer-managed field data from four representative sites. Agronomic and environmental performance and economic outcomes were assessed under actual farm sizes and a scaled 300 ha scenario. Across sites and years, no systematic yield differences were observed among CA, PA, and CPA, indicating that alternative systems can maintain yield stability under real farmer-managed conditions. Environmental performance was driven primarily by tillage intensity: CA reduced CO₂eq emissions by 212–238 kg ha⁻¹ relative to conventional tillage, while CPA achieved the largest reductions (262–332 kg ha⁻¹), accompanied by surface-layer SOM increases of 0.30–0.56% over three years. PA applied within conventional tillage resulted in only modest emission reductions (41–82 kg ha⁻¹), but consistently improved NUE, with variable-rate fertilization increasing NUE by approximately 5–7% relative to uniform application. Despite these environmental benefits, economic performance remained constrained due to high fixed machinery costs, high input prices, and low grain values resulting in negative net profits across all systems. CA reduced total costs by 3.8–11.8%, PA delivered only marginal improvements, while CPA achieved the largest cost reductions (5.0–12.6%) delivering also the most stable net profit mitigation. Carbon credit revenues increased profitability by only 2–3%. Scaling to 300 ha improved competitiveness through fixed-cost dilution, but profitability remained unattainable. Overall, integrated CA–PA systems offer substantial environmental benefits but require targeted policy support, cooperative machinery use, and service-based solutions to enable economically viable adoption in Mediterranean cereal systems. Full article

Accurate forecasting of wind and photovoltaic power remains challenging due to the strong nonlinearity, nonstationarity, and seasonal heterogeneity of renewable generation series. To address this issue, this study proposes a hybrid forecasting framework integrating time–frequency joint analysis (TFAA), temporal convolutional networks (TCN), long short-term memory (LSTM), and multi-head self-attention (MHSA). Wavelet transform is used to extract frequency-domain representations, which are jointly encoded with the original time-domain sequence through a dual-branch architecture and adaptively fused. The fused features are then processed by a TCN-LSTM backbone to capture both long-range dependencies and short-term dynamics, while MHSA is introduced to enhance global contextual modeling. Experiments on wind-farm and photovoltaic datasets from China, together with external validation on the NREL WIND Toolkit and the GEFCom2014 Solar benchmark, show that the proposed model achieves the best overall seasonal performance and maintains competitive improvements on public benchmarks. Additional ablation studies, repeated-run statistical validation, persistence-based skill-score analysis, prediction-interval evaluation, ramp-event assessment, meteorological-driver enrichment, permutation-based driver attribution, regime-conditioned error diagnostics, and transferability evidence analysis further confirm the effectiveness, robustness, physical consistency, and practical applicability of the proposed framework. The results indicate that the proposed model provides a reliable and operationally relevant solution for short-term wind and photovoltaic power forecasting. These findings further support sustainable renewable-energy integration, smart-grid dispatch, and low-carbon power-system operation. Full article

The mining industry is among the most energy-intensive sectors and remains highly dependent on fossil fuels, particularly in remote, cold-climate regions where access to centralized electricity grids is limited. This dependence poses significant challenges in terms of operating costs, energy security, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This review provides a system-level analysis of energy consumption patterns, decarbonization pathways, and renewable energy integration strategies in the mining sector. The paper first examines the structure and drivers of energy demand in open-pit and underground mines, identifying transport systems, material handling, ventilation, and comminution processes as major energy consumers. It then analyzes technological and operational decarbonization strategies, including electrification, hybrid energy systems, renewable generation, and energy storage solutions. Particular attention is given to the technical constraints associated with site isolation, extreme climatic conditions, intermittency of renewable energy sources, and mine-life considerations. Case studies from the Canadian mining industry illustrate practical implementation challenges and achievable performance improvements. The analysis shows that while renewable energy technologies and storage systems are increasingly cost-competitive, deep decarbonization of mining operations requires integrated energy management, long-duration storage solutions, and site-specific hybrid system design. The review highlights engineering and strategic pathways that can progressively reduce fossil fuel dependence and support the transition toward low-carbon mining energy systems. Full article

Optimizing nitrogen (N) management is crucial for high-quality rice (Oryza sativa L.) production. However, how N affects grain quality at different positions within a panicle remains unclear. This study evaluated the effects of different N application regimes on the milling, appearance, eating, and nutritional quality of grains at varying panicle positions. We used a japonica cultivar Wuyunjing 31 in a controlled pot experiment with three N treatments: N32:0 (early heavy N), N16:16 (split application with late N topdressing), and N16:0 (low-N control). Results showed that late N topdressing (N16:16) significantly improved head rice yield across all grain positions, which was linked to higher storage protein accumulation (especially glutelin) and larger length-to-width ratio. Conversely, late N application deteriorated appearance quality by increasing the chalky grain rate and chalkiness. This negative effect was most pronounced in superior grains on upper and middle branches. Furthermore, the N16:16 treatment consistently decreased amylose content while increasing albumin, prolamin, and glutelin levels, demonstrating a clear trade-off between carbon (C) and N sinks. We speculated that these intra-panicle differences result from increased competition for carbon resources between starch and protein synthesis pathways. Overall, precision N management should account for spatial differences in grain development to effectively balance rice yield and quality. Full article

Background: Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) constitute a large portion of the industrial energy demand in the emerging economies, but their shift to renewable energy is not well comprehended at the firm level. Bangladesh is a special case, since the country has adopted national commitments to Sustainable Development Goal 7 on clean energy, but the uptake of renewable energy by SMEs remains minimal due to complex socio-economic factors. Most of the literature has concentrated on household access to energy or national policy models, leaving a gap in empirically validated models of firm-level adoption in the manufacturing sector. Method: Based on the diffusion of innovation theory, institutional theory, and the resource-based view, this research paper formulates and empirically verifies a combined socio-economic model of renewable energy adoption. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyze a cross-sectional survey of 426 owners and managers of manufacturing SMEs in Bangladesh’s textile and food processing sub-sectors. Findings: Four out of five hypothesized direct relationships were supported. The most important drivers were environmental orientation (β = 0.467, p < 0.001, f² = 0.413), market competitiveness (β = 0.287, p < 0.001, f² = 0.413), policy and institutional factors (β = 0.211, p < 0.001, f² = 0.413), and access to finance (β = 0.096, p = 0.004). Perceptions of cost did not become significant (β= −0.036, p = 0.279). Top management support significantly and negatively moderated the relationship between environmental orientation and adoption (β = −0.093, p = 0.003), possibly because it moderates the substitution mechanism in SME decision-making, which is highly centralized. The model accounted for 64.5% of the variation in renewable energy adoption (R² = 0.645). Conclusion: The results show that attitudinal and institutional factors tend to be more important than financial barriers in determining SMEs’ energy transitions. Environmental consciousness, market incentives, and streamlined institutional access should be the focus of policy interventions to hasten inclusive low-carbon transitions in emerging manufacturing economies. Full article

Direct air capture (DAC) of CO₂ via temperature-swing adsorption (TSA) can support sustainable carbon dioxide removal, but only if sorbents regenerate with low energy demand and maintain performance under humid ambient air. In this paper, we evaluate three commercial molecular sieves (JLPM3, 13X, and 4A) in packed-bed tests using humid ambient air. We compared 40 g samples as received with 200 g samples conditioned for 12 days at 100 °C to emulate prolonged exposure to regeneration temperature (the cumulative effect of many heating/desorption cycles); all cycle-stabilized uptake values are reported from the conditioned materials. JLPM3 delivered the highest stabilized CO₂ uptake (0.24 ± 0.01 mmol·g⁻¹), consistent with a combined physisorption/chemisorption mechanism. Its higher total porosity (26.190%) and smaller mesopores (7.569 nm width) promoted rapid mass transfer and site accessibility, while slightly greater micropore area (710.285 m²·g⁻¹) and volume (0.267 cm³·g⁻¹) than 13X supported its marginally higher capacity. Evidence of partial structural degradation under mechanical and thermal stress indicates that minimizing strain during cycling will be important for scale-up and for reducing sorbent replacement. Conditioning at 100 °C activated additional chemisorption sites across all sieves but reduced physisorption capacity. Importantly, a ~100 °C desorption step fully regenerated physisorbed CO₂ while purging moisture from zeolite pores, indicating that low-temperature TSA (compatible with low-grade or waste heat) can replace harsher 300 °C regeneration and lower energy demand. CO₂–H₂O competition experiments confirmed substantial site occupancy by water vapor, which limits capture under humid conditions and motivates water management strategies. Overall, maximizing DAC performance requires tailoring pore structure and operating conditions while preserving sorbent integrity; JLPM3 emerges as a promising candidate for more energy- and resource-efficient DAC. Full article

The low-carbon transformation of the manufacturing industry is a key path to balance climate goals and industrial competitiveness. This systematic review critically analyzes 145 studies from 2012 to 2025 to explore the low-carbon transformation. Findings show that low-carbon city pilots reduce manufacturing carbon intensity via fiscal and tech expenditures; industrial internet and additive manufacturing reshape low-carbon production, with digital and green process innovations driving emission reduction. Yet, bottlenecks exist: SMEs face digital adaptation and green financing constraints; excessive digitalization causes energy rebound; high-carbon industries’ deep decarbonization is hindered by unproven large-scale economic feasibility of low-carbon tech, alongside policy-technological disconnection, and green finance structural contradictions. This study proposes core solutions: dynamic policy adjustment mechanisms, multi-dimensional SME support systems, and technology–economy coupling evaluation models. It establishes research coordinates for academia, designs policy tools for decision-makers, and provides a technological framework for industrial deep decarbonization, offering global references for balancing climate goals and manufacturing competitiveness. Full article

As the global imperative for climate neutrality intensifies, hydrogen (H₂) from fossil fuels remains central to decarbonizing hard-to-abate sectors. Conventional production via steam methane reforming (SMR), however, is carbon-intensive and, even with carbon capture and storage (CCS), incurs energy penalties and long-term storage constraints. This review develops a harmonized well-to-gate, market-oriented framework to evaluate methane pyrolysis (MP) relative to SMR and autothermal reforming (ATR), with or without CCS, moving beyond reactor-focused assessments toward system-level commercialization analysis. MP decomposes methane into hydrogen and solid carbon, avoiding direct CO₂ formation and the need for CCS infrastructure. Integrating with the reverse water–gas shift (RWGS) reaction enables flexible syngas production with adjustable H₂:CO ratios for methanol and chemical synthesis. A central finding is the dominant role of the “carbon lever”: MP generates approximately 3 kg of solid carbon per kg of H₂, making the carbon market’s absorptive capacity the primary scalability constraint. While carbon monetization can reduce levelized hydrogen costs, large-scale deployment would rapidly saturate existing carbon black and specialty carbon markets. Techno-economic evidence indicates that carbon prices above $500/ton are required to achieve parity with gray hydrogen, whereas $150–200/ton enables competitiveness with blue hydrogen. Lifecycle assessments further show that climate superiority over SMR or ATR with CCS requires upstream methane leakage below 0.5% and very low-carbon electricity. Commercial readiness varies, with plasma MP at TRL 8–9 and thermal, catalytic, and molten-media pathways remaining at the pilot or demonstration stage. Parametric decision-space analysis under harmonized boundary assumptions shows that MP is not a universal substitute for reforming but a conditional pathway competitive only under aligned conditions of low-leakage gas supply, low-carbon electricity, credible carbon monetization, and supportive policy incentives. The review concludes with a roadmap that highlights standardized carbon certification, end-of-life accounting, and long-duration operational data as priorities for commercialization. Full article

Agricultural land transformation significantly affects ecosystem services (ES), yet its impacts across different topographic gradients remain unclear, hindering integrated land management in karst mountainous areas. Using Puding County, Guizhou Province, as a case study, this research employed the land-use transfer matrix, the InVEST model, and Spearman correlation analysis to examine the spatiotemporal patterns and relationships between agricultural land transformation and ES from 2004 to 2024. The findings indicate: (1) Agricultural land transformation shows distinct topographic differentiation: non-agricultural conversion and agricultural intensification dominate low-topographic positions; ecological land use conversion and agricultural intensification coexist in mid-topographic positions; and ecological land use conversion prevails in high-topographic positions. (2) ES vary consistently along topographic gradients: soil retention and carbon storage increase with elevation, food supply concentrates in low topographic positions, and water yield changes are most pronounced at low topographic positions. (3) Topography regulates the ecological effects of transformation pathways: ecological land use conversion enhances regulating services in high-topographic positions, while farmland abandonment increases erosion risk; composite transformation promotes a dynamic balance between services in mid-topographic positions; and agricultural intensification improves food supply but intensifies water competition in low-topographic positions, whereas non-agricultural conversion degrades multiple ecosystem services. This study provides a scientific basis for zoned land management and sustainable development in karst mountainous areas. Full article

Against the backdrop of intensified climate change and increasingly prominent imbalances in resource supply and demand, achieving multi-objective collaborative optimization of the Water-Energy-Food-Carbon (WEFC) nexus under uncertain conditions has become a pivotal task for regional sustainable development. Taking the Heihe River Basin, a typical arid inland river basin in northwest China with a complex WEFC nexus, as the research area, this study develops a multi-objective collaborative optimization model for the WEFC nexus, targeting three core goals: maximizing crop irrigation water productivity, minimizing carbon emissions, and enhancing low-carbon agricultural competitiveness. The model embeds constraints of regional water security, food security, land policy, and total water resource availability, introduces the uncertainty parameter τ to quantify fluctuations in available surface water, and adopts the ideal point method to convert the multi-objective problem into a single-objective optimization task by minimizing the Euclidean distance between feasible solutions and the ideal solution, with a case application in the oasis area of the basin’s middle reaches. Results show the model exhibits excellent stability across varying uncertainty levels: crop irrigation water productivity stabilizes around 1.5 kg/m³, low-carbon agricultural competitiveness at approximately 0.1003 kg/yuan, and spatial differences in resource allocation are evident. Linze gains the most water resources (16.47 × 10⁸ m³) due to geographical advantages, while Gaotai obtains the least (6.51 × 10⁸ m³). In terms of planting structure, vegetables dominate the sown area owing to low carbon emissions and high water use efficiency, while wheat planting is relatively limited by climate adaptability and market demand. Carbon sink analysis confirms vegetables as the primary carbon sequestration contributor in Ganzhou and Linze, offering a practical pathway for agricultural carbon reduction. These findings provide tailored theoretical and practical support for balancing food security, efficient resource utilization, low-carbon development, and ecological protection in arid and semi-arid regions, facilitating regional carbon neutrality and sustainable agricultural development. Full article

The PGM-free Fe–Ni–Co trimetallic catalysts developed in this study demonstrated outstanding performance for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), achieving overpotentials as low as 300 mV at 10 mA cm⁻² in rotating disk electrode (RDE) measurements, a value competitive with the most efficient non-noble electrocatalysts reported in the literature. This study validates the strong catalytic performance of the baseline trimetallic configuration and provides important insights into the relationships among synthesis, structure, and morphology that govern catalyst activity. In particular, the findings highlight that although organic additives can be promising modifiers, the interaction between precursors and transition metals must be carefully controlled to avoid active-site isolation when designing efficient catalysts for sustainable hydrogen production. Actually, to further enhance catalytic activity, the nitrogen-rich precursor melamine was introduced into the supported trimetallic catalyst and then carbonized. However, no improvement in OER performance was observed. During carbonization, melamine promotes the formation of tip-growth carbon nanotubes, which mechanically disrupt the catalyst structure and degrade the supported active phase. Full article

The present paper investigates the adsorption performance of pinewood-derived biochars produced at two pyrolysis temperatures (850 °C, PW-A; 1000 °C, PW-B), including sieved fractions (PW-A1 and PW-A2) and a functionalized variant (PW-C), for the removal of five short- and intermediate-chain PFASs (PFBA, PFBS, PFHxA, PFHxS, and GenX) from water under continuous-flow conditions. Adsorption behavior was evaluated using Freundlich and Hill isotherm models. The Hill model provided a superior fit for most PFAS–adsorbent systems, highlighting the importance of cooperativity effects, particularly for short-chain PFASs. In single-compound experiments, PFBS and GenX showed the highest adsorption capacities (up to 82.3 and 68.5 mg g⁻¹), while PFBA and PFHxA exhibited the lowest. Among the tested materials, biochar produced at 1000 °C (PW-B) consistently demonstrated the highest adsorption efficiency. Compared to activated carbon, PW-B showed comparable performance for PFBA, PFBS, PFHxA and PFHxS and significantly better performance for GenX. In mixed-PFAS systems, competitive effects reduced adsorption capacity and cooperativity. Sulfonic PFASs showed higher affinity than carboxylic PFASs, following the trend PFHxS > PFBS > PFHxA > PFBA. Overall, the results demonstrate that waste-derived biochar represents a low-cost and sustainable alternative for PFAS removal in realistic water-treatment scenarios, supporting scalable solutions aligned with global environmental goals. Full article

Albumin is an important biomarker in biological fluids and plays a critical role, particularly in the diagnosis of renal dysfunction. Therefore, the sensitive detection of low concentrations of albumin in urine is of great importance. In this study, a composite nanohydrogel modified with carbon dots has been developed for the selective detection of albumin from human urine. The composite nanohydrogels were synthesised using a molecular imprinting technique specifically designed to recognise albumin. Characterisation studies were conducted using ZetaSizer, SEM, EDX, CLSM and ATR-FTIR methods. The albumin-binding capacities of the carbon dots (C-Dots) and synthesised composite nanohydrogels were evaluated using fluorescence spectroscopy. The effects of different concentration conditions on binding efficiency were systematically investigated. Selectivity studies have shown that albumin-imprinted nanohydrogels can detect target molecule albumin four times more selectively than competitive molecules, Hb and IgG. Imprinting efficiency was estimated by comparing the signals of albumin obtained from non-imprinted and albumin-imprinted composite nanohydrogels. Finally, artificial urine samples mimicking real biological environment conditions were examined to evaluate matrix effect on the albumin detection. The repeatability and long-term stability of albumin detection, performed with four consecutive and six-month measurements, was evaluated using the %RSD value, confirming that the albumin determination performance was maintained. Full article