Large-scale Industrial Development Research Articles

(Invited) Integration of Electrochemical Oxidation and Photocatalytic Degradation for Water Purification and Wastewater Treatment

The contamination of water with a myriad of pollutants has become an increasingly global issue in recent decades due to the widespread expansion of industrialization, which has tremendously propagated the development of large-scale industries and increased metallurgic production. Water contamination is anticipated to increase at least two-fold over the next 20 years. In this talk, a new design of an integrated electrode is introduced for the photo-electrochemical purification of water from a wastewater treatment plant. A nanoporous TiO2 structure, directly grown on a Ti substrate by anodization, and a RuO2-IrO2-based electrode was utilized as the photocatalyst and the electrocatalyst, respectively. Photocatalytic and electrocatalytic activities were synergistically combined to achieve an integrated and highly catalytically active electrode. Our experimental results have shown that the efficient enablement of photocatalytic and electrocatalytic activities within a single integrated electrode may be achieved via the new design. The applicability of this integrated electrode system was also tested in a pilot plant at a local water treatment facility. The pilot plant testing results revealed that much more efficient removal of organic waste was accomplished using the integrated electrode system as compared to only photocatalyst or electrocatalyst. The synergistic effect of the integrated bi-functional electrodes will be discussed.

Conditions and factors of development of regions of the Arctic zone of Yakutia

In 2020, the republic was one of the first in the country to adopt a regional strategy for the development of the Arctic regions for the period up to 2035. The strategy is ambitious and covers all measures to solve infrastructural tasks and implement large-scale investment projects in the Arctic, but its main goal is to sustainably ensure an increase in the standard of living and quality of life of the residents of the Arctic regions. In recent years, the Arctic theme has received significant development in the works of the scientific community and in all spheres of activity, including economic. The relevance of the research topic is due to the insufficient study of the issues of socio-economic development of Arctic municipalities. In this regard, there was a need to study the conditions and factors of development of the districts of the Arctic zone of Yakutia. The subject of the study is the socio-economic development of the Arctic districts of Yakutia, divided into 5 groups. Each group of Arctic regions has its own logistics and points of growth. Of particular interest are the Anabarsky and Oleneksky districts, these are the districts of the Anabar group, where large-scale industrial development is planned. The analysis of the socio-economic situation of the Anabar group of districts has revealed the problems typical for all Arctic districts of Yakutia. The research material was based on official data of the Territorial Body of the Federal State Statistics Service of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), in particular, the database of municipal districts.

Breeding for disease resistance is an effective way to solve PRRSV

Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome Virus (PRRSV) is one of the major diseases restricting the development of large-scale pig breeding industry, which has brought huge economic losses to pig industry. Although a lot of work has been done in vaccine development, biosafety and pig health, PRRSV is characterized by easy mutation and recombination of genome, immunosuppression, enhanced antibody dependence, persistent infection, etc., making the prevention, control and elimination of PRRSV very difficult. With the deepening of PRRSV research, it is gradually realized that screening and identifying PRRSV susceptibility/resistance genes and implementing PRRSV disease resistance breeding are long-term and effective strategies for fundamental prevention and control, which has important practical significance for the prevention and control of pig herds.

Research Progress of Industrial Heavy Metal Wastewater Treatment Process

With the rapid development of modern industry, the types and emissions of heavy metal wastewater are also increasing day by day. Heavy metal wastewater is non biodegradable, and discharge standards are also updated and iterated with people's continuous requirements for health. Based on the current situation of industrial heavy metal wastewater treatment in China, this paper summarizes the sources and treatment status of heavy metal wastewater, as well as the commonly used technologies and processes for industrial wastewater treatment from traditional to modern at home and abroad, introduces the advantages and disadvantages of physical, chemical and biological treatment methods for industrial wastewater containing heavy metals in practical applications, and looks forward to the development trend of Advanced oxidation process and biological treatment methods. The biological treatment method has the characteristics of rich raw materials, environmentally friendly and pollution-free, but at present, the research on biotechnology is not mature and its application is not widespread. If the system is applied to industrial treatment of heavy metal wastewater, further research is still needed. There are few heavy metal wastewater treatment equipment or systems developed from heavy metal wastewater treatment processes, and the issues of continuous operation, automation, and large-scale treatment of heavy metal wastewater still need to be explored. There is also room for development in the field of resource development and utilization by extracting and recovering heavy metals from sludge after heavy metal wastewater treatment. This article reviews the methods for treating heavy metal wastewater and evaluates them, with the aim of pointing out research directions and providing practical application references for the large-scale industrial development of industrial heavy metal wastewater in the future.

Challenges and Future Visions of the Hungarian Livestock Sector from a Rural Development Viewpoint

Livestock farming in developed countries faces adverse environmental impacts, including greenhouse gas emissions and pollution. Moreover, economic and social issues have emerged, such as farm concentration and the aging of farmers. Consequently, the decline of small farms and household animal husbandry substantially impacted rural communities, posing challenges for rural development. This study investigates these processes within the Hungarian livestock sector from the 1990s to recent years in the context of rural development, which is a rarely explored viewpoint in the literature. The research employed a statistical and policy document analysis, a literature review, and interviews (n = 66) conducted in Hungary’s Southern Great Plain region. The results reveal a decline in the number of animals and small farms in rural settlements, accompanied by an intense farm concentration, negatively affecting income generation opportunities. The established large-scale industrial animal husbandry has adverse environmental effects without positive externalities. The interviews highlight the severe challenges that young farmers face in starting their businesses, including land, labor, and capital shortages, leading to a slow generational change in the farming society. These processes demonstrate the limited multifunctionality of animal husbandry in Hungary. Our findings differ from those advocating for large-scale industrial agriculture development because an overly one-sided development pathway could lead to unsustainability.

The importance of groundwater for riverine fish faunas in a region of shale gas development in northern Australia

Northern Australia contains the continent’s largest number of intact river systems, but these are facing increasing pressure as the proposed development of multiple and large-scale industries, including onshore gas, mining, horticulture, and agriculture, accelerates. These developments will require the diversion or extraction of large amounts of water and increase the risk of contamination by industrial and agricultural chemicals. There is an urgent need to collect baseline biophysical information on these aquatic systems before major developments proceed. Much community concern has been expressed about the potential environmental impacts of a developing shale gas industry (fracking) in the Beetaloo Sub-basin and upper Roper River region of the Northern Territory. Here we describe the first major survey of the freshwater fish fauna of this region and an assessment of the importance of groundwater in supporting fish biodiversity. This region is remote from major human settlements and the waterbodies are often difficult to access. Accordingly, we maximised the information we collected from limited sampling sessions by using both traditional fish survey methods (netting and electrofishing) and eDNA analysis of water and benthic sediment samples. Water column eDNA doubled the number of species recorded to those obtained from traditional survey methods alone. We found that the fish fauna was richest at sites on northward-flowing groundwater-dependent rivers. More work is needed to fully understand the dependence of individual species on groundwater inflows. However, it is evident that conserving freshwater fish biodiversity in these rivers will require protection of the groundwater resources to ensure baseflows and aquatic refuges persist through the most extended of dry seasons.

An empirical study on the development of MSMEs and the role of MSMEs in the economic growth of Rajasthan

Rajasthan has been a state of natural conflicts. Due to adverse geographical location, desert, lack of water and lack of infrastructure, there has been little development of large scale industries. Therefore, small and cottage industries, rural industries and handicraft industries have been of special importance in the economy of Rajasthan. Small and cottage industries hold special importance for Rajasthan in terms of employment generation, state income, best utilization of local resources, industrial decentralization, promotion of local talent, export promotion and requirement of less capital and technical knowledge.Being a developing state, MSMEs are the backbone of Rajasthan's economy. After the independence, the central and state governments have paid a lot of attention to the development of these industries. The scope of MSMEs is very wide as the economic life of a large number of people depends on these industries only. This paper attempted to explain the role and importance of the MSMEs sector in the Rajasthan economy, and the efforts made by the central and state government to develop and strengthen the MSMEs sector to its continuous contribution to the development of state.

Research on Municipal Sludge Dewatering and Modified Catalytic Combustion Technology

Aiming at the problem that high moisture content of municipal sludge with flocculation structure and high water retention capacity, which makes dewatering and drying difficult, this paper carries out research on dewatering, drying and modified combustion technology of municipal sludge with the goal of resource and energy utilization. The sludge dewatering agent ZC-2T and catalytic oxidation nitrification agent ZC-4R were preferably selected as the main components of modified adjusting agent ZC-1W for industrial application of sludge energy disposal. The compounded modified adjusting agent ZC-1W has a positive contribution to improve the combustion performance of sludge mixed with raw coal, which providing important theoretical support and practical data for the large-scale industrial development and application of municipal sludge. The study will generate significant economic and social significance.

Financial potential as a basis for ensuring environmental and economic security of the Arctic regions

Large-scale industrial development of the Arctic territories is a steady course of development that the world economy has been following for several decades. This development is facilitated by global warming, which creates prerequisites for the freeing more and more territories from ice, depletion of resources, especially hydrocarbons, as well as the emergence of new technologies that allow extraction of minerals in difficult conditions for economic activity in the Arctic. Given the vulnerability of the Arctic natural systems, the issues of environmental and economic security, as a result of such development, come to the fore. The study, analyzes the financial capabilities of the Arctic regions and concludes that they have significant financial potential, which, if used rationally, should contribute to ensuring economic and environmental security. The paper proposes the authors’ interpretation of the concept of financial potential of the region. The review of domestic and foreign scientific literature showed that many works are devoted to topical issues of ensuring environmental and economic security of the Arctic regions, but the impact of financial potential on these categories is currently undefined. The paper also analyzes the financial potential of economic entities operating in the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation. It has been revealed that of the nine regions of the Russian Federation classified as Arctic, only one - the Krasnoyarsk Territory - has the value of the indicator characterizing the share of break-even enterprises, which exceeds the average Russian values. At the same time, when assessing the coefficient of provision with tax payments, in seven out of nine regions the value of this coefficient exceeds the average Russian values.

Extraction of long time series wetland information based on Google Earth Engine and random forest algorithm for a plateau lake basin – A case study of Dianchi Lake, Yunnan Province, China

Wetlands are transitional zones between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. They have the potential to continuously provide human beings with food, raw materials, and other substances. Also, wetland landscape pattern changes have profound impacts on the climate of plateau areas and accelerate the rate of climate change, so it is crucial to extract long time series of plateau wetland information. Concurrent with large-scale urbanization, industrial development and construction, and rapid population increases, the lakeside wetlands in the Dianchi Lake Basin are changing rapidly. However, scholars have not yet extracted long time series wetland information for this area, so the long-term evolution of these wetlands cannot be clarified. In this study, we used the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform to extract wetland information for the Dianchi Basin from 1988 to 2020 from Landsat data and generated 33 wetland maps by applying a random forest classification model to identify trends and a confusion matrix to assess accuracy. The results showed that the overall trend of wetland area from 1988 to 2020 showed an increasing area, and the total wetland area increased by 31.11 km2 (+9.67 %). Furthermore, the overall accuracy of most years exceeded 80 %, the QADI was no higher than 0.2, the user accuracy and producer accuracy were higher than 80 % and 70 %, respectively, for swamps and water bodies, and the remaining non-wetland categories also achieved robust classification accuracy. Thus, the results of this study can compensate for the lack of information on wetland changes in the region over the past 33 years and provide data support and a scientific basis for sustainable wetland development in the plateau.

Spatial-temporal characteristics and influencing factors of county-level carbon emissions in Zhejiang Province, China.

Zhejiang Province is a "demonstration area for high-quality development and construction of common prosperity" in China. Moreover, the county is the basic unit and power source for the economic development of Zhejiang Province. Therefore, the research on the spatial-temporal characteristics and influencing factors of county-level carbon emissions is of great significance for Zhejiang Province to achieve the strategic goal of carbon peak and carbon neutrality. Based on the carbon emissions and socio-economic data of 62 counties in Zhejiang Province from 2014 to 2020, the spatial dependence and agglomeration of county-level carbon emissions are analyzed through the spatial autocorrelation test and local spatial autocorrelation test respectively. According to the spatial-temporal characteristics of county-level carbon emissions revealed by the index of Moran's I and local Moran's I, the spatial error STIRPAT model is used to study the influencing factors of county-level carbon emissions in Zhejiang Province, China. The main results are as follows: (1) The total amount of county-level carbon emissions of 62 counties fluctuates from 259.69 to 326.28 million tons and shows a growth trend. (2) Moran's I index is between 0.369 and 0.399. The county-level carbon emissions have a significant spatial correlation, and the spatial agglomeration trend is relatively stable, which is consistent with the hypothesis of the geographical polarization effect. (3) High-high agglomeration counties are concentrated in the northeast of Zhejiang Province, while low-low agglomeration counties are mainly in the southwest. (4) The relationship between county per capita GDP and carbon emissions has not been "decoupled," because when other variables remain unchanged, the county's total carbon emissions will increase by 2.866% for every 1% increase in the county's per capita GDP; the increase of the proportion of secondary industry contributes to the decline of carbon emissions, and the low-carbon effect brought by large-scale industrial development as well as scientific and technological innovation has not yet appeared. (5) The estimate of the spatial coefficient λ was 0.324, which illustrates that the carbon emission of a single county is positively affected by the carbon emission of the neighboring counties, and other socio-economic factors affecting carbon emission among counties also have a spatial correlation. Therefore, the policy of realizing regional coordinated development as well as the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals should not only focus on industrial layout, but also take a dynamic and comprehensive consideration from a spatial perspective.

Digital Music Recommendation Technology for Music Teaching Based on Deep Learning

With the rapid development of music streaming media service industry, users can easily hear any song on mobile devices. Internet has become a huge music storage platform. With the development of network and large-scale digital music industry, the acquisition and listening of music are presented to users in a more convenient way. How to find the music loved by users from the massive Internet digital music data has become the key problem and main goal to be solved in the field of music information retrieval. Personalized music recommendation system can accurately find and push songs that users may be interested in from tens of millions of huge music libraries according to users’ information under the condition that users only have vague demand for listening to songs. Relying on the traditional search method to find the music that you are interested in can no longer meet the needs of users, so the current music recommendation system needs to dig out the music that has no clear needs in the long tail to help people find their favorite songs.

Nehru’s Vision of Swaraj and Socialism

The thought of socialism is an age old phenomenon in the human society. Its traces can be found in the writings of Greek philosophers like Plato and Aristotle. Shades of socialistic thoughts can also be discovered in the Santan Dharma scriptures, Islamic scriptures and the teachings of Jesus Christ. But it was only in the beginning of the 19th century that socialism as a political, social and economic philosophy gained momentum.
 Jawaharlal Nehru believed that no country or individual could develop much without social freedom and a socialist structure of the society and the state. The idea of socialism had been a constant thought in his mind since the pre-independence days. As an economic modernist of his times, Nehru believed in the development of large-scale industries, which he thought was the only key to overcome poverty in the country. Nehru’s concept of socialism was not merely a rigid theoretical doctrine. Theories when put to practice entertain pragmatic difficulties. When Nehru got the opportunity to apply his concept of socialism as the first Prime Minister of India, he had to confront with many complications. His idea of socialism was subjected to many changes looking to the vast population of India. A strict adherence to any doctrine may prove detrimental at times, more so in a country, like, India. Nehru, therefore, envisaged a policy of mixed economy, of course socialist in nature, which would be best suitable to the needs of the country. India has both a rural and an urban economy and what is required is a harmonious blend between the two for the growth and development of the country. The construction of a series of big dams for agricultural irrigation along with the production of hydroelectricity i.e. energy for industrial purposes reflects Nehru’s idea of drawing a balance between the two major sectors of the country. 
 What Nehru meant by Swaraj was not merely political freedom but beside political freedom it should include social and economic justice for the Indian masses. Independence should bring not only a change of the officials but should also bring a change in the fundamentals of the life of a nation.
 The year 1991 will always be remembered in India as a year which is witness to a drastic change in the Indian economy policy. This was the year when the Government of India drifted from Nehru’s policy of mixed economy and announced the new economic policy which consisted of a wide range of reforms. Thirty years have passed under this new economic system and now the time has come when we should evaluate and analyze how far this new approach has been beneficial to the country.
 Today, the country is face to face with innumerable problems; problems related to inflation, unemployment, caste, class and religious activism. The country needs to address these problems in a determined way before it is too late. I understand that the time has come when we need to once again look back to Nehru’s vision of Swaraj and socialism for a pragmatic solution to these problems.

To Measure the Impact of Technological Development on Weaker Sections with Special Reference from the Industries of HAJIRA

This article argues that in absence of 'proper' development induced Displacement, Resettlement and Rehabilitation Policy/Program, virtually turns in to 'marginalization’ the condition of weaker section of the rural society. This is what brought out in this article by taking the case of Hajira village, where large scale industrial development has been taken place in post 1980s. It is observed that the farmers especially small, marginal and the other agriculture dependents such as agricultural laborers, animal rears, share-croppers, artisan group, etc. lost their traditional means of livelihood due to acquisition of land; of both types privately and commonly owned. The present article written on the basis of the author's M.Phil. dissertation that was completed in 2012. Total 59 i.e.14% sample families comprising various groups such as farmers of all types; rich, medium and marginal, animal rears, agricultural laborers, fish workers, scrap accumulators, were selected proportionately by using scientific sample method.

Development of Artificial Synthetic Pathway of Endophenazines in Pseudomonas chlororaphis P3.

Simple SummaryTerpenoid phenazines generally produced in Streptomyces exhibit potential antitumor and antibacterial activities. In this study, we designed and constructed an artificial biosynthetic pathway for the synthesis of terpenoid phenazines in Pseudomonas chlororaphis P3. We successfully synthesized endophenazine A and endophenazine A1 for the first time in Pseudomonas by introducing the prenyltransferase PpzP. Moreover, we revealed the biosynthetic pathway of endophenazine A1 in P. chlororaphis P3. This study enriches the diversity of phenazines in P. chlororaphis P3 and provides a reference for the heterologous synthesis of terpenoid phenazines.Endophenazine A is a terpenoid phenazine with phenazine-1-carboxylic acid (PCA), and dimethylallyl diphosphate (DMAPP) derived from the 2-methyl-D-erythritol-4-phosphate (MEP) pathway as the precursor, which shows good antimicrobial activity against several Gram-positive bacteria and fungi. However, the highest yield of endophenazine A was about 20 mg/L in Streptomyces, limiting its large-scale industrial development. Pseudomonas chlororaphis P3, possessing an efficient PCA synthesis and MEP pathways, is a suitable chassis to synthesize endophenazine A. Herein, we designed an artificial biosynthetic pathway for the synthesis of endophenazine A in P. chlororaphis P3. Primarily, the prenyltransferase PpzP from Streptomyces anulatus 9663 was introduced into P. chlororaphis P3 and successfully synthesized endophenazine A. Another phenazine compound, endophenazine A1, was discovered and identified as a leakage of the intermediate 4-hydroxy-3-methyl-2-butene pyrophosphate (HMBPP). Finally, the yield of endophenazine A reached 279.43 mg/L, and the yield of endophenazine A1 reached 189.2 mg/L by metabolic engineering and medium optimization. In conclusion, we successfully synthesized endophenazine A and endophenazine A1 in P. chlororaphis P3 for the first time and achieved the highest titer, which provides a reference for the heterologous synthesis of terpenoid phenazines.

Urbanization of Indigenous Peoples of Siberia and the Far East (20th to Early 21st Centuries)

This article integrates studies relating to the history of urban communities of Siberian and Far Eastern indigenous peoples. A multidisciplinary approach to urbanization processes is used; their stages, rates, causes, and principal characteristics are analyzed. The database consists of our own fi eld fi ndings, published results of sociological studies, and those of All-Union and All-Russian population censuses. Three stages of urbanization affecting indigenous Siberians are described, and their factors and mechanisms are evaluated. The process is characterized by intense migration of indigenous peoples to the towns and cities during the recent period, accompanied by large-scale industrial development, and the transition of aboriginal societies from the traditional to the modern lifestyle. The urbanization, however, has not been completed, because of the underdeveloped urban infrastructure and the fact that many indigenous peoples to the cities had retained their rural traditions. The sa lient characteristic of the urbanization of indigenous peoples in the macroregion is that it was asynchronous, and that its sh ort intense phase, whereby the indigenous peoples mostly moved to nearby towns and urbanized villages in the 1960s–1970s, did not extend to all indigenous communities. Urbanization was incomplete in terms of both quality and quantity, and the integration of indigenous peoples into the urban space has engendered serious problems. According to the All-Russian population census of 2010, only fi ve indigenous peoples of Siberia and the Far East had completed the urbanization process: Kereks, Mansi, Nivkhs, Uilta and Shors. Currently, most indigenous peoples are medium-urbanized. The lowest level of urbanization is among the Soyots, Siberian Tatars, Telengits, Tofalars, Tubalars, Chelkans, Chulyms, and Tozhu Tuvans. We conclude that urbanization among the indigenous peoples is a long, diffi cult, and contradictory process, which, in modern Siberia, triggers many ethnocultural and ethno-social transformations of regional multiethnic communities.

Microorganisms-promoted biodiesel production from biomass: A review

Biodiesel is considered as a potential substitute for fossil fuel due to its renewability, sustainability, environmentally friendliness, and biodegradability, especially with comparable fuel properties to diesel. The chemocatalytic production of biodiesel from plant oils is widely used in industrial production due to its low cost and high conversion rate. However, the disadvantages are high energy consumption and environmentally unfriendly processing such as chemical catalysts, downstream technology and simultaneously produced waste. Therefore, in the past decade, enzyme-catalyzed biodiesel has attracted more attentions due to its sustainability and environmental friendliness. High-cost, enzyme stability and reusability are the main obstacles to the large-scale industrial development of microbial biodiesel. This review first showcases the state-of-the-art of microbial biodiesel production, including (1) lipid accumulation of oleaginous microorganisms from pretreated lignocellulose biomass, and (2) production of biodiesel from microbial oils via transesterification by immobilized lipase. Also, the technological challenges and future developmental trends are discussed, with the goal of providing the possibility of more economical large-scale industrial production. This paper provides opportunities for the sustainable and eco-friendly production of enzymatic biodiesel in the future.

Малочисленные народы Севера арктических районов Якутии в урбанизационных процессах середины ХХ в.

The purpose of the research is to shed light on the demographic and urbanisation processes among small-numbered peoples that took place in the North of Yakutia in the 1930s-1950s. The paper considers the general situation that developed by the middle of the XX century, as well as the factors that influenced the formation of the ethnic landscape in the studied region. Scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that social transformations in the Arctic regions, as well as the role that local aboriginal ethnic groups played in the said processes during the specified period have not yet become a separate object of study. The research findings present the socio-demographic picture that has developed in the circumpolar regions of Yakutia at the initial stage of the large-scale industrial development of the Arctic.

Ongoing decline of suitable habitat for the Critically Endangered Gurney's pitta Hydrornis gurneyi

AbstractFrom 1999 onwards, level, lowland forests (altitude < 150 m, slopes < 10°) in the Tanintharyi Region of southern Myanmar have been cleared on a large scale and replaced by oil palm plantations. This has resulted in a drastic decline in suitable habitat for several species, including Gurney's pitta Hydrornis gurneyi (Passeriformes, Pittidae). The habitat for this species has decreased by > 80%, leading to its categorization as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List in 2019. As threats in the region have continued, we updated information on the status of the species’ habitat in January 2020, and examined forest loss in the three strongholds where the species still persists in the wild. Since the previous estimate in 2017, suitable habitat in these locations has decreased by 8% (from 656 to 603 km2), with > 10% of the remaining area now in fragments of < 1 km2, which are unsuitable for the mid- to long-term survival of the species. Forest degradation and edge effects from increased fragmentation have led to further loss of suitable habitat in these strongholds. Projections indicate that unless conservation action is taken, all suitable habitat will disappear by 2080. The main threat to the long-term survival of Gurney's pitta is the lack of legal protection of primary lowland forests, resulting in uncontrolled clearance for small- and large-scale agriculture and industrial development. We provide recommendations to reduce the rate of loss of the remaining suitable habitat for the species.

On the use of tapered channels gas distributors to promote convection in PEM Fuel Cells

Polymeric Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFC) are promising power propulsion systems for the decarbonization of the transportation sector. Despite being a well-known method for the direct production of electric current from the reactants chemical energy, one of the major limitations to their large-scale industrial development are fluid dynamics and mass transport aspects, crucially limiting the electrochemistry rate under critical conditions. This is especially verified in PEMFC with serpentine-type gas distributors, for which such areas are identified in proximity of the gas channel bends where the dominant mechanism for species transport shifts from a convection-enhanced to a diffusion-limited one. An engineering method to enhance the convective transport in such deficient areas is the use of gas distributors with tapered channels, effectively forcing the flow in diffusive media and improving the reactants delivery rate and products removal. A numerical analysis is presented on a limited domain representing a section of a serpentine gas distributor. A multi-dimensional CFD study is carried out comparing conventional-type and tapered channel distributors, evaluating the combined effect of pressure losses, catalyst layers utilization, flow regime in anisotropic diffusion media and convection/diffusion balance via a non-dimensional analysis. The study covers various inlet Reynolds numbers and in-plane permeability of porous materials for two diffusion media thicknesses, with the aim to extend the generality of the study. Conclusions based on the simulation results outline channel tapering as a very effective way to improve the power density of PEMFC, although an energetic cost/benefit analysis indicates a reduced cell efficiency.