The increasing water pollution calls for more effective and sustainable treatment technologies. Conventional technologies face critical challenges such as fouling, struggling with emerging micropollutants, and limited mass transfer. Electrocatalytic membranes (ECMs) couple convective transport through a porous membrane-electrode with interfacial electrochemical reactions, enabling simultaneous separation and contaminant transformation in compact process trains. High removal efficiencies are governed by permeation-enhanced mass transfer and current distribution rather than intrinsic catalytic activity. The dominant removal pathway shifts among electrosorption, direct electron transfer, and indirect oxidation. ECMs also reduce fouling via electrostatic repulsion and in-situ redox reactions, suitable for various organic pollutants, including pharmaceuticals and micropollutants, while also enabling resource recovery from wastewater. However, they are limited by durability and secondary burdens, including catalyst deactivation or leaching, pore blockage, catalytic instability, sludge management, and energy-intensive fabrication routes for ceramic ECMs. This review provides a comprehensive overview of ECM fabrication strategies, system configurations, and their multifunctional roles in water treatment. Emerging frontiers include single-atom ECMs that maximize atom utilization and enable tunable reactive-species selectivity, and machine-learning-assisted design frameworks that accelerate multi-objective optimization of catalyst-architecture-operation for durability and by-product control. Standardized metrics linking energy use, current efficiency, by-products, and long-term ageing and life-cycle analyses are essential for scalable deployment of ECM technology. • Electrocatalytic membranes (ECMs) couple filtration with in-pore redox chemistry. • We classify ECM systems and link each configuration to its separation mechanisms. • Electrocatalytic membrane fabrication strategies are assessed. • Industrial-scale deployment is limited by cost, stability, and process complexity. • Challenges and future directions of electrocatalytic membranes are analyzed.

Fe3O4-based nano-fertilizers for simultaneous nutrient supply and remediation of contaminated soils.

Metal-organic frameworks for nuclear waste remediation: A review of cutting-edge advances and applications.

Allura red in aquatic systems: Treatment technologies, process intensification strategies, and future perspectives for sustainable water management.

Techno-economic comparison of energy storage technologies for wind-solar integration: A life-cycle cost-benefit analysis

Sustainability assessment of unmanned aerial vehicles-based last-mile delivery: An integrated life cycle analysis

Life cycle analysis of recycling phosphate mining by-products in compressed earth blocks: a solution towards sustainable phosphate industry in Morocco.

Creation and evaluation of 3D printed compostable myringotomy sets: A sustainable proof of concept.

Seeing the forest for the plastic trees: a model-driven visualisation framework for material flow analysis.

The growing environmental awareness has driven material industries to seek sustainable alternatives to synthetic fibers. Abaca fiber ( Musa textilis ), a superior natural fiber with excellent tensile strength and seawater resistance, presents significant potential for sandwich composite applications. This review paper aims to synthesize recent advancements in utilizing abaca fiber as a core and face sheet material in sandwich composite structures. A systematic literature review of indexed journal articles from the last decade was conducted. The review identifies that chemical treatments and hybrid configurations with other fibers significantly enhance the mechanical properties and moisture resistance of abaca-based sandwich composites. Furthermore, this paper analyzes the prospects and challenges of integrating this material into the shipbuilding industry, particularly for interior panels, partitions, and lightweight non-structural components. The analysis shows that while promising, widespread adoption in marine applications requires further research on long-term durability, material standardization, and life cycle analysis to comprehensively demonstrate its economic and environmental advantages.

Electrochemical intercalation materials offer selective lithium recovery from saline streams, but conventional electrode architectures impose scale-up constraints. Here we report an electrode-free bioelectrochemical intercalation process in which a dissimilatory metal-reducing bacterium, Shewanella oneidensis MR-1, drives lithium uptake into λ-MnO2. The system self-assembles into microbe-mineral agglomerates that sustain electrochemical-rate intercalation without external wiring, forming a recoverable lithiated slurry. Over 95% of lithium was recovered from seawater within hours, with less than 1% co-intercalation of competing metal ions. Bottom-up self-agglomeration, in which extracellular and cell-surface cytochromes facilitate efficient electron transfer, enables scale-up. The generality and energetic basis of this mechanism are further supported by reproducing the key behaviour in an orthogonal FePO4 host with negligible abiotic reactivity. Techno-economic and life-cycle analyses for Li2CO3 production suggest that the process reduces brine water loss while maintaining competitive costs. These results establish self-assembled bioelectrochemical intercalation as a route to lithium recovery from saline streams.

Brominated flame retardants (BFRs) pose a growing threat to agricultural safety, yet their dynamic transfer mechanisms and interference with crop metabolism remain poorly understood. This study systematically unravels the lifecycle translocation of BFRs in rice and deciphers the signaling-mediated cascade leading to grain-quality deterioration. BFR accumulation did not follow a simple xylem-mediated transport pattern; instead, secondary enrichment occurred during grain filling, inversely correlated with their logKow and molecular weight. In particular, the concentration of 2,2',4,4'-tetrabromodiphenyl ether (BDE-47) in the panicles increased sharply from ∼1 ng/g at the heading stage to 16.5 ng/g at the filling stage, reaching 42.0 ng/g at maturity, representing an order-of-magnitude increase. This accumulation critically coincided with a marked depletion of nutritional components: amylopectin and total protein decreased by 10.3-17.7%, accompanied by a 12.5% reduction in 1000-grain weight. Through integrated transcriptomic, proteomic, and metabolomic analyses, along with a novel motif-based unbiased screening method, we deciphered the core adverse outcome pathway (AOP). BFRs advanced the abscisic acid (ABA) peak by 5 days and increasing its concentration ∼20% compared to the control. This intensified ABA signaling pathway upregulated tricarboxylic acid cycle enzymes by 2-5-fold, and redirected carbon flux from starch synthesis toward energy production. This metabolic shift accelerates the cotransport of selected BFRs (e.g., BDE-47) into the developing grain, driving premature maturation and nutritional loss. By establishing a complete "signal activation → metabolic reprogramming → pollutant co-transport → quality deterioration" AOP framework, this study provides a mechanistic foundation for understanding the potential dietary implications of BFRs in rice, offering crucial insights for safeguarding food safety and controlling agricultural contamination.

Biohydrogen has emerged as a promising alternative energy carrier due to its renewability and environmental friendliness. In recent decades, significant progress has been made in biohydrogen production from organic waste, particularly agricultural residues, which represent one of the most abundant renewable resources globally. This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of the latest advances in the biotechnological conversion of agricultural biomass into biohydrogen, with a particular focus on dark fermentation as a sustainable and efficient approach. It begins by addressing the structural complexity of agricultural waste and the associated challenges in microbial conversion. The core mechanisms of dark fermentation are discussed, along with key microbial communities involved and the primary factors affecting biohydrogen yield. The chapter further evaluates pretreatment methods, fermentation processes, and emerging strategies for improving performance. In addition, it highlights the importance of machine learning-based modeling, process integration, techno-economic assessment, and life cycle analysis in advancing the practical application of dark fermentation for biohydrogen production from agricultural biomass. The purpose is to provide the theoretical and technical basis for the valorization of agricultural residue into biohydrogen.

Staff Perspectives of Single-use versus Reusable Sterile Textiles: A Qualitative Analysis.

Rapid population growth and urban development have intensified construction activity, increased construction and demolition waste (CDW) generation and contributing to rise in global solid waste. In this context, the present study investigated the production of cement free alkali-activated mortars (AAMs) using CDW derived brick waste (BW) and concrete waste (CW) as the sole solid constituents. Eleven BW/CW blending ratios were prepared by increasing BW from 0% to 100% in 10% increments with CW reduced proportionally. Sodium hydroxide (NaOH) was used as the alkaline activator at 0%, 5%, 7%, and 10% (by mass). Specimens were water cured under controlled conditions for 7, 28, and 60 days. Mechanical performance was assessed using unconfined compressive strength (UCS) and non-destructive ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV) to determine shear modulus (G0). Microstructural characterization was conducted using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and X-ray diffraction (XRD) to examine reaction products and matrix development. NaOH activation substantially improved both UCS and G0 compared with untreated mixtures. The optimum performance among all tested mixtures was achieved by the 90BW/10CW blend in the 10% NaOH series at 60 days, reaching a maximum UCS of 28.7MPa and G0 of 30.4 GPa. Across activated mixes, UCS and G0 increased with BW content up to approximately 90BW, followed by a decrease at 100BW, consistent with insufficient calcium availability for effective gel development. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) identified NaOH dosage as the most influential factor, followed by BW/CW blending ratio and curing age, and SEM indicated a denser, more homogeneous matrix in activated mixes. Overall, the results demonstrate that optimized BW/CW combined with NaOH activation can produce high performance cement free mortars from CDW, supporting circular construction practices. Future research should focus on long term durability, and life cycle analysis to quantify the environmental benefits and tradeoffs associated with large scale implementation.

Deep eutectic solvent as dual roles for molecularly imprinted polymers: A green strategy for selective adsorption of Sulfamethoxazole.

Polymerization-based wastewater treatment can couple decontamination with resource recovery at low energy input by transforming dilute organics into separable products. However, it requires selective oxidant activation, and iron, although abundant and industrially relevant, often forms metastable over-oxidizing adducts that suppress polymerization selectivity. Here, we design and synthesize a distance-tailored iron single-atom catalyst (Fe-SAC) featuring a coupled Fe1-Fe2 pair that enables sequential generation of reactive Fe(IV)═O species from peroxymonosulfate. Theory and experiments reveal that formation of the first Fe1(IV)═O triggers a spin-state transition of the adjacent Fe2 site to a high-spin configuration, while the finely tuned Fe1─Fe2 separation geometrically matches the O─O bond in the oxidant. This spin reconfiguration strengthens Fe─O covalency and promotes a superexchange-assisted pathway, leading to chain formation of Fe2(IV)═O through bidentate axial bonding and site-to-site electronic coupling. In a continuous-flow reactor, the scalable Fe-SAC increases polymerization selectivity from 29.9% to 73.3% and boosts electron utilization from 156.8% to 443.8%. Life-cycle and techno-economic analyses further indicate ∼88% and ∼79% reductions in environmental impacts for catalyst synthesis and operation, respectively, together with an estimated ∼90% decrease in pollutant removal cost. This work establishes a design principle to unlock selective Fe(IV)═O chemistry for low-chemical, polymerization-based water purification with engineering viability.

This paper provides a life-cycle analysis of the Trust Game, using its trajectory as a lens to clarify the boundaries between experimental and behavioral economics. We first trace its 1995 creation by Berg et al. as a challenge to calculative trust paradigms. A bibliometric study then maps its diffusion, revealing two divergent paths in economics: one, rooted in experimental economics, prioritises measurement; the other, in behavioral economics, theory-testing. These paths differ in methods and validity standards, constituting an epistemic divide that illuminates the fields’ evolving relationship.

Environmental impacts from conventional and digital dental crown fabrication workflows: A comparative life cycle assessment.

Life-cycle and techno-economic analyses of agro-waste-derived biodegradable plastics enhanced via AI-based parametric optimization.