Advanced materials design for sustainable clean water production technologies

While both fundamental types of abatement measures mitigate the adverse environmental impacts of production, cleaner production technologies are frequently more advantageous than end-of-pipe technologies for environmental and economic reasons. This paper analyzes a variety of factors that might enhance firms? propensity to implement cleaner products and production technologies instead of end-of-pipe technologies. On the basis of a unique facility-level data set derived from a recent OECD survey, we find a clear dominance of cleaner production in seven OECD countries: Surprisingly, 76.8% of the facilities report that they invest predominantly in cleaner production technologies. With regard to environmental product innovations, the large majority of facilities reports that the measures they have undertaken to reduce environmental impacts were geared at production processes and not so much at products. Our estimation results are based on multinomial logit models which indicate that regulatory measures and the stringency of environmental policies are positively correlated with end-of-pipe technologies, while cost savings, general management systems, and specific environmental management tools tend to favor clean production. We conclude that improvements towards cleaner products and production may be reached by the continuous development and wider diffusion of these management tools. Improvements may also be stimulated by widening the cost gap between the two types of technologies, for instance, by additionally charging for waste and energy use.

End-of-Pipe or Cleaner Production? An Empirical Comparison of Environmental Innovation Decisions Across OECD Countries

Recent advances on small molecule doped carbon nitride photocatalysts: Application in environmental water remediation and clean energy production

It has been over ten years for the green chemistry and clean production became a popular research subject in China. The researchers have made astounding achievements in several sectors such as controlling pollution from the source, alleviating the influence of the chemical processes to the environment, contributing an important part to the development of modern chemical industry in China. The general scientific strategy research on intrinsic safety and clean production under the green chemistry framework is a must for China to develop a healthy chemical industry and to protect its environment. Through this research, we aim at establishing an effective and feasible scientific strategy for the coordinated development of clean production and intrinsic safety technology, extending beyond single research subject to get ideas and technology support from multiple academic sectors. Regarding the national science development strategy, we have put forward the coordinated development of intrinsic safety and clean production in combination with their common characteristics.

As a sustainable and clean water production technology, solar thermal water evaporation has been extensively studied in the past few years. One challenge is that upon operation, salt would form on surface of the solar absorbers leading to inefficient water supply and light absorption and thus much reduced water vaporization rate. To address this problem, a simple solar evaporator based on an array of aligned millineedles for efficient solar water evaporation and controlled site-specific salt formation is demonstrated. The maximum solar evaporation rate achieved is 2.94kg m-2 h-1 under one Sun irradiation in brine of high salinity (25wt% NaCl), achieving energy conversion efficiency of 94.5% simultaneously. More importantly, the spontaneously site-specific salt formation on the tips of millineedles endows this solar evaporator with salt harvesting capacity. Rationally separating the clean water and salt from brine by condensation and gravity assistance, this tip-preferential crystallization solar evaporator is not affected by the salt clogging compared with conventional 2D solar evaporators. This study provides new insights on the design of solar evaporators and advances their applications in sustainable seawater desalination and wastewater management.

Enhancing the photothermal efficiency of MoS2 through ultraviolet-ozone exposure for improved solar evaporation

Solar absorber with tunable porosity to control the water supply velocity to accelerate water evaporation

A framework for strategic assessment of far-reaching technologies: A case study of Combined Heat and Power technology

The utilization of solar-driven interfacial evaporation (SIE) technology for clean water production has rapidly expanded, driven by global clean water scarcity and the energy crisis. Recent developments have demonstrated that combining SIE technology with the ion extraction process enables the effective use of abundant sunlight to economically and sustainably harvest high-value minerals from the ocean while simultaneously producing clean water. This synergy not only maximizes resource recovery but also enhances the ecological and economic benefits of solar energy utilization. In this review, we provide a comprehensive overview of the materials and methodologies used in designing multifunctional SIE systems for simultaneous clean water production and high-value ion extraction. The design rationale behind these multifunctional SIE systems, along with various ion extraction strategies and mechanisms, has been thoroughly discussed, identifying both the prevailing challenges and the potential research opportunities in this evolving field. This review aims to highlight the significant potential of SIE technology not only in enhancing clean water availability but also in contributing to sustainable energy and resource management.

Shape-controlled fabrication of cost-effective, scalable and anti-biofouling hydrogel foams for solar-powered clean water production

The environment industry, which includes a wide range of products and services relating to the monitoring, treatment, control and management of industrial and domestic pollution, has grown rapidly during the 1980s and 1990s in response to environmental regulations. Due to the relatively early application of these regulations in the United States, Europe and Japan, these areas have become competitive producers and exporters of environmental products and services. As the industrial sector has developed, environmental awareness has been raised and competition and international trade in the environment industry has expanded. There is now a clear North/South dimension to international patterns of development of the industry and its trade. Whilst environment industries were originally established to deal with waste reduction and disposal strategies, there has also been a drive towards cleaner production. The European environment and cleaner technology industries are reviewed in order to establish their competitiveness and the shift between the two different approaches to environmental management: amelioration by environment industries and prevention by cleaner process and production technologies. Latin American provides the counter­example in terms of the experience of the environment industry and cleaner production in the South. The nature of the expansion of the industrial environmental management sector is questioned, particularly as regards the composition of the sector and the way it is interpreted in different countries. The paper suggests that the environment industry and cleaner technologies should be understood as industries rather than as unquestionably environmentally positive sets of products and services. It also addresses the extent to which these industries reveal an information and technology gap in environmental management. This gap may, on the one hand, assist environmental managers in the South, but on the other hand it may lead to a condition of environmental management dependence.

Clean energy technologies have been developed to address the pressing global issue of climate change; however, the functionality of many of these technologies relies on materials that are considered critical. Critical materials are those that have potential vulnerability to supply disruption. In this paper, critical material intensity data from academic articles, government reports, and industry publications are aggregated and presented in a variety of functional units, which vary based on the application of each technology. The clean energy production technologies of gas turbines, direct drive wind turbines, and three types of solar photovoltaics (silicon, CdTe, and CIGS); the low emission mobility technologies of proton exchange membrane fuel cells, permanent-magnet-containing motors, and both nickel metal hydride and Li-ion batteries; and, the energy-efficient lighting devices (CFL, LFL, and LED bulbs) are analyzed. To further explore the role of critical materials in addressing climate change, emissions savings units are also provided to illustrate the potential for greenhouse gas emission reductions per mass of critical material in each of the clean energy production technologies. Results show the comparisons of material use in clean energy technologies under various performance, economic, and environmental based units.

The development of advanced manufacturing paradigms is significantly influenced by the ongoing digital transformation and green transformation (GX). In this context, key challenges across various domains, including design, processing, fabrication, inspection, maintenance, and recycling, must be addressed to satisfy the requirements for labor reduction, skill-free operation, and efficiency enhancement throughout the entire production process. Social prosperity must be sustained while concurrently managing resource consumption by linking these challenges. Consequently, the fundamental performance of production tools, such as machine tools, assembly machinery, industrial robots, and measuring instruments, is paramount. Additionally, the circulation of design, evaluation, and operational information within the value cycle should be actively promoted. This special issue explores diverse topics related to GX and its role in promoting cleaner production in manufacturing industries and related sectors. It comprises papers on sustainable manufacturing processes, the circular economy, green supply chains, as well as algorithms and models that address their theoretical foundations. The editor extends their sincere gratitude to all authors for their dedication and high-quality submissions. We also acknowledge the reviewers for their thorough evaluations that have contributed significantly to the excellence of this special issue. Finally, we hope that the publications in this issue will support the advancement of cutting-edge technologies and next-generation systems dedicated to sustainable manufacturing and cleaner production.

A parametric study of the exergetic, exergoeconomic, and exergoenvironmental performances of chlorine family thermochemical cycles for sustainable hydrogen production

The scarcity of useable water is severe and increasing in several regions of the Middle East, Central and Southern Asia, and Northern Africa. However, the earth's atmosphere contains 37.5 million billion gallons of water in the invisible vapor phase with fast replenishment. The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification reports that by 2025 about 2.4 billion people will suffer from a lack of access to safe drinking water. Extensive research has been conducted during the last two decades to develop nature-inspired nanotechnology-based atmospheric water-harvesting technology (atmospheric water generator, AWG) to provide clean water to humanity. However, the performance of this technology is humidity sensitive, particularly when the relative humidity (RH) is high (>~80% RH). Moreover, the fundamental design principle of the materials system for harvesting atmospheric water is mostly unknown. In this work, we present a promising technology for solar energy-driven clean water production in arid and semi-arid regions and remote communities. A polymeric electrospun hybrid hydrogel consisting of deliquescent salt (CaCl2) and nanomaterials was fabricated, and the atmospheric water vapor harvesting capacity was measured. The harvested water was easily released from the hydrogel under regular sunlight via the photothermal effect. The experimental tests of this hybrid hydrogel (PAN/AM/graphene/CaCl2) demonstrated the feasibility of around 1.04 L of freshwater production per kilogram of the hydrogel (RH 60%). The synergistic effect enabled by photothermal materials and deliquescent salt in the hydrogel network architecture presents controllable interaction with water molecules, simultaneously realizing efficient water harvesting. This technology requires no additional input of energy. When considering the global environmental challenges and exploring the available technologies, a sustainable clean water supply for households, industry, and agriculture can be achieved from the air using this economical and practical technology.