Discover insights from thousands of peer-reviewed papers on microbial electrochemical systems
Arpita Bose, Gratian Ting
Open Access Government · 2024
Microbial extracellular electron transfer in the human gastrointestinal tract Gratian Ting and Arpita Bose from Washington University in St. Louis discuss the fascinating role that extracellular electron transfer plays within the human gut. The human gut microbiome contains around hundreds of trillions of bacteria, and a great diversity of species. In fact, the number of bacteria in the human gut is similar in number to all the cells in the human body, further signifying the heterogeneity and significance of this microbiota. The habitat filtering of the human gut, defined as the non-random survival of microorganisms in relation to characteristics of the surrounding environment, is influenced by two important factors: host and diet. Disruption of normal host gut processes through various means, could cause cell death and dysbiosis, disrupting host-mediated habitat filtering. However, diet plays a far more common role in this process. Different dietary behaviors exist between individuals from cultural, moral, economic, and other means.
Arpita Bose, Aiden Wang
Open Access Government · 2024
Extracellular electron transfer explained Arpita Bose, PhD from Washington University in St. Louis, guides us through host-associated impacts and biotechnological applications of extracellular electron transfer in electrochemically active bacteria. Electron flow and oxidative and reductive reactions, referred to as “redox reactions,” collectively impact the outcomes of biochemical pathways essential for cell growth, energy conservation, and stress response throughout various organisms. An example of these organisms is electrochemically active bacteria (EAB), which can link internal redox reactions with external electron acceptors or donors via a process known as extracellular electron transfer (EET).
C. Pandit, B. S. Thapa, Bhagyashree Srivastava et al.
BioTech · 2022
Due to the continuous depletion of natural resources currently used for electricity generation, it is imperative to develop alternative energy sources. Human waste is nowadays being explored as an efficient source to produce bio-energy. Human waste is renewable and can be used as a source for an uninterrupted energy supply in bioelectricity or biofuel. Annually, human waste such as urine is produced in trillions of liters globally. Hence, utilizing the waste to produce bioenergy is bio-economically suitable and ecologically balanced. Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) play a crucial role in providing an effective mode of bioelectricity production by implementing the role of transducers. MFCs convert organic matter into energy using bio-electro-oxidation of material to produce electricity. Over the years, MFCs have been explored prominently in various fields to find a backup for providing bioenergy and biofuel. MFCs involve the role of exoelectrogens which work as transducers to convert the material into electricity by catalyzing redox reactions. This review paper demonstrates how human waste is useful for producing electricity and how this innovation would be beneficial in the long term, considering the current scenario of increasing demand for the supply of products and shortages of natural resources used to produce biofuel and bioelectricity.
Yulviany Latuihamallo, Ferymon Mahulette, T. Watuguly
BIOEDUPAT: Pattimura Journal of Biology and Learning · 2023
Energy use is closely related to world economic growth and urbanization. Therefore, research was carried out by utilizing organic vegetable waste as a source of renewable energy. This study aims to determine variations in incubation time of vegetable waste that affect electricity production and to determine differences in bio-electricity production based on variations in incubation time of vegetable waste. The results of bioelectricity measurements in the Microbial Fuel Cell reactor, the maximum production of bioelectricity is found at the incubation period of 7 days, namely 9.48 mA at the 0th minute (initial), the maximum electric voltage is 288 mV at the 60th minute, the maximum power is 2205.50 mW in the 30th minute, and the maximum power density is 152.10 mW/m2 in the 30th minute.
S. Rojas-Flores, M. De La Cruz-Noriega, L. Cabanillas-Chirinos et al.
Fermentation · 2023
This research aimed to use kiwi waste as fuel to generate bioelectricity through microbial fuel cells. It was possible to generate an electrical current and voltage peaks of 3.807 ± 0.102 mA and 0.993 ± 0.061 V on day 11, showing an electrical conductivity of 189.82 ± 3.029 mS/cm and an optimum operating pH of 5.966 ± 0.121. The internal resistance of the cells was calculated using Ohm’s Law, resulting in a value of 14.957 ± 0.394 Ω, while the maximum power density was 212.68 ± 26.84 mW/m2 at a current density of 4.506 A/cm2. Through the analysis of the FTIR spectra carried out on the substrate, a decrease in the characteristic organic peaks was observed due to their decomposition during the electricity-generation process. In addition, it was possible to molecularly identify the bacteria Comamonas testosteroni, Sphingobacterium sp., and Stenotropho-monas maltophila adhered to the anodized biofilm. Finally, the capacity of this residue to generate bioelectricity was demonstrated by lighting an LED bulb with a voltage of 2.85 V.
F. B. Ilhami, Anis Rahma Cahyani, Desyana Auralia Azizah et al.
Bioelectricity · 2024
The ever-increasing annual consumption of electrical energy for daily activities will unavoidably harm the financial well-being of individuals. Nonetheless, the availability of fuel sources that generate electrical energy including fossil fuels, oil, and coal remains decreasing, which results in becoming scarcer than ever. Conversely, fruits are one of the strategies that shed light on renewable energy source alternatives, considering the increasing studies of developments of fruits as energy sources in the few past decades. In this study, we review the extensive body of literature on prospective and potential components of fruits that can produce renewable electrical energy sources. It focuses on a fundamental for a comprehensive understanding of types of fruits, the synthesis process, and the mechanisms governing that fruits can generate electrical energy sources. Furthermore, this study outlines the challenges, plausible solutions, and prospects of the potential fruits that are sources of renewable energy for simple electricity production.
R. J. Marassi, L. G. Queiroz, D. C. Silva et al.
Bioprocess and Biosystems Engineering · 2020
P. Opoku, Huang Jingyu, L. Yi et al.
Chemosphere · 2022
Ricardo O. Louro, Giovanni Rusconi, Bruno M. Fonseca et al.
Microorganisms · 2022
Multiheme cytochromes play a central role in extracellular electron transfer, a process that allows microorganisms to sustain their metabolism with external electron acceptors or donors. In Shewanella oneidensis MR-1, the decaheme cytochromes OmcA and MtrC show functional specificity for interaction with soluble and insoluble redox partners. In this work, the capacity of extracellular electron transfer by mutant variants of S. oneidensis MR-1 OmcA was investigated. The results show that amino acid mutations can affect protein stability and alter the redox properties of the protein, without affecting the ability to perform extracellular electron transfer to methyl orange dye or a poised electrode. The results also show that there is a good correlation between the reduction of the dye and the current generated at the electrode for most but not all mutants. This observation opens the door for investigations of the molecular mechanisms of interaction with different electron acceptors to tailor these surface exposed cytochromes towards specific bio-based applications.
Marina Ramírez-Moreno, Abraham Esteve Núñez, Juan M. Ortiz
SSRN Electronic Journal · 2022
Edson Baltazar Estrada-Arriaga, Erick O. Bahena-Bahena, Liliana García-Sánchez et al.
Desalination and Water Treatment · 2017
Soubhagya Nayak, Sudipa Bhadra, Surajbhan Sevda
Journal of Water Process Engineering · 2024
Xueling Wu, Yunhui Tang, Charles Amanze et al.
Bioresource Technology · 2024
Microbial Cell Factories · 2019
Analysis pending
Chemical Engineering Journal · 2020
COMSOL modeling study by Gadkari
· 0
COMSOL modeling study by PintoShukla
· 0
COMSOL modeling study by SouzaFinite
· 0
COMSOL modeling study by WangFinite
Transport in Porous Media · 2019
COMSOL modeling study by Wang
International Journal of Thermofluids · 2020
COMSOL modeling study by Shukla
Materials · 2024
COMSOL modeling study by Oyetunde
Sensors · 2017
COMSOL modeling study by Moran
Renata Toczyłowska-Mamińska, Mariusz Ł. Mamiński
Energies · 2023
The potato processing industry is among the biggest water-consuming industries, using an average of 17 L of water per 1 kg of processed product. Taking into account that the potato is the fourth-most-important non-cereal food crop with a global production of 376 million tons a year, this branch is a large wastewater producer. Potato-processing wastewater is highly loaded and thus difficult to treat through conventional methods, especially when a low energetic input for environmental benignancy is required. In this review, it was shown that microbial fuel cells (MFCs) are an excellent technology for sustainable potato wastewater treatment. MFCs allow for potato wastewater COD removal with efficiencies as high as 99%, which is accompanied by electricity production that may reach 3.7 W/m2. Thus, the recently published research reviewed in this paper indicates that simultaneous power production and removal of chemical oxygen demand make MFCs superior to conventional treatment methods. Encouraging results and the unique advantages of MFC technology, like significant water and energy use reduction, give a promising perspective on potato-processing wastewater treatments.
Imelia Dewi, Laksmi Ambarsari, Akhiruddin Maddu
Jurnal Kimia Sains dan Aplikasi · 2020
The world's energy needs generally come from non-renewable sources. In other circumstances, some research on renewable energy is being developed from a variety of different sources, one of which is biomass. Biomass changes the energy system towards the modernization of the bioenergy system by utilizing the concept of biochemical systems (BESs). A microbial fuel cell is known as one of the renewable technologies that convert biomass with the help of microbes to produce electricity. This research is based on a microbial fuel cell based on ecoenzyme Citrus reticulata known as Ecoenzyme fuel cell to determine the electrical value (voltage, current, and power density). Ecoenzyme was made from orange peel waste, molasses, and water with a ratio of 3: 1: 10 and fermented for a month. Meanwhile, the electrode device used was a pencil graphite. Some treatments were carried out to optimize the performance of the system based on the number of electrodes (one pair and three pairs), and the stirring conditions, stirring at 200 rpm and without stirring (0 rpm). The EFC system was run for four weeks (600 hours) with the highest voltage obtained at 650 mV and current at 29.55 mA. The ecoenzyme produced the most significant power density of 750 W/m2 in the treatment of 3 electrode pairs with a stirring speed of 200 rpm. The influence of electrodes and stirring in the MFC system upsurged the electrical value output by 53.7% for a pair of electrodes and 142% for three electrode pairs. Further development will continue to be done to improve the performance and output of the Ecoenzyme fuel cell system as a future renewable energy source in Indonesia.
P. Aelterman, K. Rabaey, P. Clauwaert et al.
Water Science and Technology · 2006
Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) are emerging as promising technology for the treatment of wastewaters. The potential energy conversion efficiencies are examined. The rates of energy recovery (W/m3 reactor) are reviewed and evaluated. Some recent data relating to potato-processing wastewaters and a hospital wastewater effluent are reported. Finally, a set of process configurations in which MFCs could be useful to treat wastewaters is schematized. Overall, the MFC technology still faces major challenges, particularly in terms of chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal efficiency.
Alexander Kott
The Journal of Defense Modeling and Simulation: Applications, Methodology, Technology · 2020
This paper explores the question of whether a single regularity of technological growth might apply to a broad range of technologies, over a period of multiple centuries. To this end, the paper investigates a collection of diverse weapon systems called here the mobile direct-fire systems. These include widely different families of technologies that span the period of 1300–2015 CE: foot soldiers armed with weapons from bows to assault rifles; horse-mounted soldiers with a variety of weapons; foot artillery and horse artillery; towed antitank guns; self-propelled antitank and assault guns; and tanks. The main contribution of this paper is that, indeed, a single, parsimonious regularity describes the historical growth of this extremely broad collection of systems. Multiple, widely different families of weapon systems—from a bowman to a tank—fall closely on the same curve, a simple function of time. This suggests a general model that unites allometric relations (such as Kleiber’s Law) and exponential growth relations (such as Moore’s Law). To this author’s knowledge, no prior research describes a regularity in the temporal growth of technology that covers such widely different technologies and over such a long period of history. This regularity is suitable for technology forecasting, as this paper illustrates with explorations of two systems that might appear 30 years in the future from this writing: a heavy infantryman and a tank. In both cases, the regularity helped lead to nonobvious conclusions, particularly regarding the power of the weapons of such future systems. Furthermore, this result suggests a possibility—and related research questions—that even broader collections of technology families might evolve historically in accordance with what might be called universal laws of technological evolution.
Iryna Rusyn, Oksana Fihurka, Vasyl Dyachok
Innovative Biosystems and Bioengineering · 2023
Background. Plant-microbial fuel cell (PMFC) is an innovative biotechnology for the environmentally safe bioelectricity generation. The widespread use of bioelectrical systems (biosystems) is hindered by their insufficient efficiency due to limiting knowings of the relationship between bioelectricity generation and features of their biotechnological components. Objective. Тhe purpose of this study was to analyze the role of the plants morphological parameters and structure features of biomodules on generation of bioelectricity. Methods. Biometric, biogravimetric, voltammetric, and statistical analysis methods were used to assess the relationship between plant`s accumulated mass of leaf and roots, multielectrode design of biosystem and bioelectricity generation. Results. PMFC based on sedge C. hirta with the largest accumulated total dry leaf/stem and root mass and also the rhizome-like and developed fibrous root system were characterized by the highest power output compared to other biosystems. The power density was 970 ± 22 mW m-2 PGA. The parallel stacking of biomodules leads to obtain current output about 108.7 mA. That is why the developed biotechnological systems can be recommended as a foundation for the development of power supply for WiFi microcontrollers that consume 100 mA or for charging batteries. Conclusions. Sedge С. hirta were appeared as the more suitable plants for biological component of biosystem of bioelectricity generation. Power density of С. hirta based PMFC exceeded the one of based on other plants in 9.3–37.9%.The type and level of development of the root system and of the above-ground photosynthetic surface of plant are an important prognostic factors of the PMFC perfomance. A 10-fold increase of the electrode surface of one biomodule results in 3.95 times increase of power density at 200 W. The multielectrodeity biomodule reveals as another lever for increasing the efficiency of biosystems which allows obtaining significantly increase power density and current density in the range of electrical resistance from 50 to 500 W.
Juping You, Lei Ye, Shihan Zhang et al.
Biotechnology advances · 2024
Bioelectrochemical systems (BES) as environmental remediation biotechnologies have boomed in the last two decades. Although BESs combined technologies with electro-chemistry, -biology, and -physics, microorganisms and biofilms remain at their core. In this review, various functional microorganisms in BESs for CO2 reduction, dehalogenation, nitrate, phosphate, and sulfate reduction, metal removal, and volatile organic compound oxidation are summarized and compared in detail. Moreover, interrelationship regulation approaches for functional microorganisms and methods for electroactive biofilm development, such as targeted electrode surface modification, chemical treatment, physical revealing, biological optimization, and genetic programming are pointed out. This review provides promising guidance and suggestions for the selection of microbial inoculants and provides an analysis of the role of individual microorganisms in mixed microbial communities and its metabolisms.
Ellen Wohl
Environmental Science · 2014
River networks, and even individual river segments, are complex ecosystems that can be studied from many perspectives. Arguably the most common differentiation is between studies that focus on various aspects of rivers, such as contemporary physical processes (river engineering, hydrology, or geomorphology); physical processes over longer time spans (geomorphology); chemical processes (geology or aqueous chemistry); individual species or groups of organisms (fish biology); and biological communities (aquatic and riparian ecology). Each of these approaches to understanding rivers has an extensive technical literature. The works cited in this bibliographic entry draw from these sometimes disparate bodies of literature and focus on rivers in an environmental context rather than treating a specific river as an isolated feature or focusing solely on one component of rivers. River segments and river networks provide a wealth of information about past and contemporary environmental conditions, for rivers inherently integrate fluxes of matter and energy within a landscape through the entity of a drainage basin. The entire land surface that drains to a specified point makes up the drainage basin for that point. In addition to water, sediment, solutes, and organic matter enter the river network via atmospheric, surface, and subsurface pathways. Matter and energy move upstream, laterally, and vertically within a river network, as well as downstream. A well-studied example comes from the upstream migration of spawning salmon that then die and transfer ocean-derived nutrients to the river network and adjacent riparian zone. Because a river so effectively integrates diverse inputs and reflects conditions across the entire drainage basin, investigators have used physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of rivers as metrics for the environmental state of the river itself, and of the larger drainage basin. Three of the sections within this bibliographic entry include works that provide examples of these metrics for prehistoric, historic, and contemporary environmental conditions. Rivers also provide numerous ecosystem or environmental services, such as clean water and recreational fisheries, and another section provides examples of studies focusing on this aspect of rivers. Attempts to manage rivers and preserve desired attributes such as clean water, flood control, or fisheries constitute an important subset of environmental management, and are addressed in the final section of this entry.
Edward J. Anthony
Environmental Science · 2016
River deltas are subaqueous and subaerial coastal accumulations of river-derived sediments adjacent to, or close to, the source river. The word “delta,” however, is used in a more general sense to describe any feature resulting from this type of marginal accumulation, including in lakes, lagoons, ponds, mining tails, and reservoirs. Most river deltas are formed on the margins of marine basins. River deltas vary considerably in size, and some are the largest coastal landforms in the world. In addition to fluvial sediments, delta deposits sometimes include marine or along-shore derived sediments transported by waves and currents. Deltas form where the hydrodynamic conditions in the receiving basin are not energetic enough to disperse all or the bulk of the sediment brought in by rivers. Sediment transported through deltas contributes to deposition on adjacent coasts, continental shelves, and marine basins. Much of the early research on modern deltas focused on their oil- and gas-bearing potential and how they are analogs for ancient deltas in the rock record. There has been a shift, however, toward increasingly more diverse and cross-disciplinary research on deltas. Deltas are complex landforms. Recent research has shown that deltas also act as filters, sinks, and reactors for continental materials, including carbon, in transit to the ocean. Deltas are home to nearly six hundred million people. They commonly have highly productive soils, rich and biodiverse ecosystems, and offer a wide range of ecosystem services such as coastal defense, drinking water supply, recreation, green tourism, and nature conservation. Many deltas support intense agriculture and fisheries and are food baskets for many nations. Industry and transport in some deltas are also very important, leading to the development of major urban centers, ports, and harbors. Deltas are characterized by low topography and thus particularly vulnerable to catastrophic river floods, tsunami, cyclones, subsidence, and global sea-level rise. This vulnerability is increasing as a result of reduced sediment flux from rivers and various other modifications caused by human interventions. Although deltas may develop resilience and adapt to changes in sediment supply and sea level, commonly by reorganizing their channels and their patterns of sedimentation, human impacts coupled with the effects of climate change are rendering many deltas economic and environmental hotspots. A better understanding of delta dynamics and vulnerability, and a lot of political goodwill, are needed to implement adaptive delta management, and delta restoration and rehabilitation strategies.
Jennifer Hubbard
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Environmental Science · 2017
Fisheries science emerged in the mid-19th century, when scientists volunteered to conduct conservation-related investigations of commercially important aquatic species for the governments of North Atlantic nations. Scientists also promoted oyster culture and fish hatcheries to sustain the aquatic harvests. Fisheries science fully professionalized with specialized graduate training in the 1920s. The earliest stage, involving inventory science, trawling surveys, and natural history studies continued to dominate into the 1930s within the European colonial diaspora. Meanwhile, scientists in Scandinavian countries, Britain, Germany, the United States, and Japan began developing quantitative fisheries science after 1900, incorporating hydrography, age-determination studies, and population dynamics. Norwegian biologist Johan Hjort’s 1914 finding, that the size of a large “year class” of juvenile fish is unrelated to the size of the spawning population, created the central foundation and conundrum of later fisheries science. By the 1920s, fisheries scientists in Europe and America were striving to develop a theory of fishing. They attempted to develop predictive models that incorporated statistical and quantitative analysis of past fishing success, as well as quantitative values reflecting a species’ population demographics, as a basis for predicting future catches and managing fisheries for sustainability. This research was supported by international scientific organizations such as the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), the International Pacific Halibut Commission (IPHC), and the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Both nationally and internationally, political entanglement was an inevitable feature of fisheries science. Beyond substituting their science for fishers’ traditional and practical knowledge, many postwar fisheries scientists also brought progressive ideals into fisheries management, advocating fishing for a maximum sustainable yield. This in turn made it possible for governments, economists, and even scientists, to use this nebulous target to project preferred social, political, and economic outcomes, while altogether discarding any practical conservation measures to rein in globalized postwar industrialized fishing. These ideals were also exported to nascent postwar fisheries science programs in developing Pacific and Indian Ocean nations and in Eastern Europe and Turkey. The vision of mid-century triumphalist science, that industrial fisheries could be scientifically managed like any other industrial enterprise, was thwarted by commercial fish stock collapses, beginning slowly in the 1950s and accelerating after 1970, including the massive northern cod crisis of the early 1990s. In the 1980s scientists, aided by more powerful computers, attempted multi-species models to understand the different impacts of a fishery on various species. Daniel Pauly led the way with multi-species models for tropical fisheries, where the need for such was most urgent, and pioneered the global database FishBase, using fishing data collected by the FAO and national bodies. In Canada the cod crisis inspired Ransom Myers to use large databases for fisheries analysis to show the role of overfishing in causing that crisis. After 1980 population ecologists also demonstrated the importance of life history data for understanding fish species’ responses to fishery-induced population and environmental change. With fishing continuing to shrink many global commercial stocks, scientists have demonstrated how different measures can manage fisheries for species with different life-history profiles. Aside from the need for effective scientific monitoring, the biggest ongoing challenges remain having politicians, governments, fisheries industry members, and other stakeholders commit to scientifically recommended long-term conservation measures.
Karam Ahmad, Melinda Laituri
Environmental Science · 2017
The use of geographic information systems (GIS) in environmental science is a complex, multifaceted, and amorphous topic. Environmental science is a multidisciplinary field that integrates the biological, social, and physical sciences to address the seemingly intractable environmental problems humans face. Increasingly, GIS is the tool used to organize, analyze, manage, and visualize geospatial data that links models to derive outputs from environmental analysis and modeling. Coupled, the fields of GIS and environmental science cover a multitude of topics and approaches scattered across a broad bibliographic landscape. The environmental movement of the 1960s and 1970s fueled the development of environmental science as a disciplinary field closely related to ecology, geography, and hydrology. In the 1980s, GIS became a more accessible tool for researchers through such programs as GRASS, Intergraph, and ESRI’s ArcInfo to characterize and analyze complex environmental problems. During the 1990s, approaches to environmental science focused on risk management, pollution, and monitoring. The coincidence of Internet development, data accessibility, visualization, and software modeling tools have created a perfect storm for the adoption of an integrated approach—environmental science with an integrated technology (GIS)—to address environmental issues. There has been a virtual explosion of applications and research utilizing GIS that cover a broad range of issues: water resources, climate change, urban planning, environmental justice, vulnerability studies, etc. This bibliography provides an entrée to the complex landscape of GIS applications for environmental science. It is not an exhaustive bibliography, but one that highlights some of the main avenues of GIS applications. Utilizing the Web of Science, Academic Search Premier, and Google Scholar, key articles on GIS and environmental science were accessed and organized around various thematic areas, including Disasters, Ecology, Pollution, Public Health and Epidemiology, and Water Resources Analysis. There are numerous other areas of this topic, but selecting these areas presents the reader with an overview of the field. Many of the articles in this bibliography provide a jumping off point to explore other topic areas that are not included in this bibliography.
Sven Wunder
Environmental Science · 2023
Payments for environmental services (PES), also sometimes called payments for ecosystem services, emerged from the perceived need of conservation practitioners around the world for more cost-effective and equitable ways of using scarce funds. Also sometimes referred to as ecocompensation, rewards, or cash transfers, PES consist of direct conditional payments from the users of environmental services (or their collective representatives) to landowners or stewards who provide them by adopting environmentally friendlier practices of protection or restoration. Environmental service (ES) users effectively rent out certain partial land rights from landholders (e.g., limiting their rights to deforest). This only works when ES provision can be well-monitored and enforced and when landholders can flexibly and legitimately change their preferred modes of production. Otherwise, ES users might prefer to buy out environmentally sensitive lands entirely (e.g., creating municipal reserves for spring protection in a watershed), although becoming responsible for land stewardship may over time be costly. While some PES started as long-term public environmental subsidy programs (e.g., the US Conservation Reserve Program), the big push for PES in this millennium came from economists arguing for more direct, performance-based incentives. The PES approach has become more popular among both scholars and conservation practitioners over the last few decades, with the majority of PES programs focused on forest conservation. Geographically, PES have been most popular in the Americas (North, South, Central) and in China. PES can predominantly be seen as a private lands counterpart to public protected areas, although in most countries PES are far less extensive. Increasingly, PES are applied alongside a mix of policy approaches, as a tool in a toolbox of conservation mechanisms, with the aim of incentivizing landholders to engage in sustainable practices, and promising potential long-term provenance of ES while also supporting livelihoods. PES contracts can range from short term to the indefinite duration of perpetual conservation easements. With more application of PES globally, and a font of new experiences to study, a growing body of research has emerged, seeking to evaluate the environmental and poverty reduction impacts of PES. These studies assess the successes and limitations of PES schemes, and promote best practices in preconditions, design, and implementation, as well as contextual backdrops that can affect the effectiveness and efficiency of PES schemes. Some obstacles and conditions may not be designed away, such as land-tenure insecurity and organizational capacity to pay for ES: these jeopardize the emergence and expansion of PES schemes, especially in tropical forest frontiers. However, despite the worrying record of government-led PES schemes in terms of design and implementation errors, their ability to organize collective payments at scale and to intelligently bundle them into complex policy mixes may be important future arguments in their favor.
Christopher A. Scott, Bhuwan Thapa
Environmental Science · 2015
Environmental security, as a subset of broader concerns over human security, is addressed from the disciplinary perspectives of international relations, political science, geography, development studies, and environmental studies. The concept of environmental security views ecological processes and natural resources as sources or catalysts of conflict, barriers or limits to human well-being, or conversely, as the means to mitigate or resolve insecurity. Security over natural resources—particularly energy and increasingly water—seen in terms of territorial control, treaty arrangements, and trade agreements (including the application of economic instruments) over production and conveyance of resources to demand locations, has tended to frame the analysis in international relations and political science. While spatial and transboundary concerns over resources continue to occupy geographers, attention in the field of geography is drawn increasingly to social equity and environmental justice dimensions of resource use and outcomes. Development studies focused on emerging economies and societies in rapid transition addresses environmental security in terms of differential national or regional access to resources and impacts, e.g., associated with pollution, deprivation, etc. And among other points of concern, environmental studies addresses environmental security in terms of local, intra-household, and gender-differentiated access to water, energy, and food as well as outcomes such as public health, nutrition, and quality of life. While the term environmental security has existed since at least the 1980s, its prominence in academic and political circles rose significantly after the 1994 Human Development Report of the United Nations Development Programme, which formulated the broadly accepted concept of human security. This report identified environmental security together with economic, food, health, personal, community, and political security as core components of human security. Since the 1990s, the definition and scope of environmental security have broadened to include multiple subsets, including food security, energy security, and water security, as well as emerging notions of adaptation and resilience to hazards, e.g., climate security, and all of these are referred to in this article. No attempt is made to treat the broad and ever-widening field of environmental security exhaustively. The principal aims are to trace the evolution of security discourses, consider securitization of the environment and natural resources, and assess new conceptions of environmental security in the context of global change. This work is funded by the Lloyd’s Register Foundation, a charitable foundation helping to protect life and property by supporting engineering-related education, public engagement, and the application of research.
Roger Perman
Environmental Science · 2015
Environmental economics uses the tools of economic analysis to address issues relating to the impacts of human activity on the natural environment, the ways in which those impacts affect human well-being, and the appropriate policy and regulatory responses to environmental problems. Such policy responses include targets (how much pollution is acceptable) and instruments (what means are available to achieve particular targets and their relative merits). Environmental economics emerged as a well-defined subdiscipline in the 1960s; in the 1970s and 1980s, most research considered local air and water pollution problems, with a key theme emerging that the use of economic incentive-based policy instruments had large potential efficiency gains compared with traditional (command-and-control) regulatory instruments. As the subject became more actively researched, other strands have become interwoven into environmental economics. First, recognition that sustainability of activity is as important as economic efficiency and that these two objectives may not always be mutually consistent. Second, system-level thinking showed that researchers cannot properly address environmental concerns without being aware of the material basis of economic activity and without considering the ecosystems within which particular configurations of resources are found—hence, the emergence of ecological economics and the linkage of natural resource economics with mainstream environmental economics. Early work in environmental economics was national or subnational in focus and heavily dominated by papers that addressed issues of particular concern to the more affluent Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. This emphasis changed for several reasons. Global poverty reduction became more central to the international agenda, and governments became aware that dealing with poverty was a necessary condition for achieving sustainability goals. Globalization and greater economic interdependence of nations pointed to the need to bring international trade into the analysis of environmental problems. In addition, perhaps of most importance in terms of its effect on studies by environmental economists, it became evident that many of the most serious and least tractable environmental problems were international, with impacts spilling over national boundaries and thus requiring international policy coordination. In this vein, research has begun on solving acid rain pollution, ozone layer–depleting substances (both of which have been dealt with relative success), and global environmental problems such as biodiversity loss and climate change (the track record for both is far less impressive). One unifying feature throughout the whole discipline of environmental economics is the issue of valuation of non-marketed goods and services, including environmental amenities. A central precept within the discipline is that environmental problems arise because of the presence of externalities, particularly “public good” externalities. By definition, externalities are not priced. However, designing appropriate policy responses requires that shadow prices be imputed, and the huge literature on non-market valuation considers how these shadow prices can be estimated.
, Behnam Mortazavi, Najaf Allahyari Fard et al.
Research in Molecular Medicine · 2020
Background: Contraceptive vaccines (CVs) can be used as a valuable and alternative method for the prevention of gestation in humans and animals. These vaccines can have several targets, such as superficial sperm proteins. Vaccines based on sperm antigens are quite efficacious to create a contraceptive effect. However, multi-epitope vaccines are more effective in stimulating the immune system and producing more antibodies to reduce the infertility rate. Materials and Methods: This study aimed to design and evaluate a chimeric fusion protein containing IZUMO, SACA3, and PH-20 epitopes. IZUMO1, SACA3, and PH-20 were assessed, and appropriate regions were selected using various bioinformatics tools, including IEDB, I-TASSER, ProtParam, Asa-View, and Chimera software. Protein epitopes were selected based on various characters, including specificity, solvent accessibility, their weight and length, antigenic intensity, and topology. Epitopes with high antigenic potential were selected and joined together by linkers. The designed fusion protein was simulated using Molecular Dynamic, GROMACS 5, and Chimera 1.14 software. Results: The results demonstrated that all antigenic plots and availability of epitopes in the new construct remained constant. The spermatic antigens were combined using rigid linkers as a new construct and showed a stable formation with proper solvent accessibility validated by ProSA-web and PROCHECK. Also, comparing the new structure with its original one did not show any structural change. Conclusion: Based on bioinformatics results, the fusion protein that consists of three spermatic antigens has productive potential to stimulate the immune system and capable of producing more antibodies in circulation and reliable infertility.
Ihsanullah Ihsanullah
Nano-Micro Letters · 2020
A broad overview of MXenes and MXene-based nanomaterials in desalination is presented. Recent advancement in the synthesis of MXenes for applications in desalination is critically evaluated. Salt removal mechanisms and regeneration capability of MXenes are appraised. Current challenges and future prospect of MXenes in desalination are highlighted. Research directions are provided to safeguard the applications of MXenes in future desalination. MXenes, novel 2D transition metal carbides, have emerged as wonderful nanomaterials and a superlative contestant for a host of applications. The tremendous characteristics of MXenes, i.e., high surface area, high metallic conductivity, ease of functionalization, biocompatibility, activated metallic hydroxide sites, and hydrophilicity, make them the best aspirant for applications in energy storage, catalysis, sensors, electronics, and environmental remediation. Due to their exceptional physicochemical properties and multifarious chemical compositions, MXenes have gained considerable attention for applications in water treatment and desalination in recent times. It is vital to understand the current status of MXene applications in desalination in order to define the roadmap for the development of MXene-based materials and endorse their practical applications in the future. This paper critically reviews the recent advancement in the synthesis of MXenes and MXene-based composites for applications in desalination. The desalination potential of MXenes is portrayed in detail with a focus on ion-sieving membranes, capacitive deionization, and solar desalination. The ion removal mechanism and regeneration ability of MXenes are also summarized to get insight into the process. The key challenges and issues associated with the synthesis and applications of MXenes and MXene-based composites in desalination are highlighted. Lastly, research directions are provided to guarantee the synthesis and applications of MXenes in a more effective way. This review may provide an insight into the applications of MXenes for water desalination in the future.
Lenan Zhang, Zhenyuan Xu, Lin Zhao et al.
Energy & Environmental Science · 2021
Solar desalination holds significant promise for the water-energy nexus. Recent advances in passive solar desalination using thermal localization show great potential for high-efficiency freshwater production, which is particularly beneficial for areas without well-established water and energy infrastructure. However, there is a significant knowledge gap between laboratory scale innovation and commercial adoption. In this review, we discuss two critical factors – water production and reliability – which, if addressed systematically, could enable high-performance thermally-localized solar desalination systems. We show that optimizing heat and mass transfer of the entire device and recycling the latent heat of condensation are important to enhance total water production. Meanwhile, we discuss the potential of novel system architectures and fluid flow engineering to enable anti-fouling and robust desalination devices. In addition, we present techno-economic analysis that highlights the balance between water production, reliability, and cost. A criterion for economic feasibility is provided by comparing the price of desalinated water with commercially available bottle and tap water, which provides a roadmap for future development of solar desalination technologies.
Wenhui Shi, Xiaoyue Liu, Tianqi Deng et al.
Advanced Materials · 2020
The application of electrochemical energy storage materials to capacitive deionization (CDI), a low‐cost and energy‐efficient technology for brackish water desalination, has recently been proven effective in solving problems of traditional CDI electrodes, i.e., low desalination capacity and incompatibility in high salinity water. However, Faradaic electrode materials suffer from slow salt removal rate and short lifetime, which restrict their practical usage. Herein, a simple strategy is demonstrated for a novel tubular‐structured electrode, i.e., polyaniline (PANI)‐tube‐decorated with Prussian blue (PB) nanocrystals (PB/PANI composite). This composite successfully combines characteristics of two traditional Faradaic materials, and achieves high performance for CDI. Benefiting from unique structure and rationally designed composition, the obtained PB/PANI exhibits superior performance with a large desalination capacity (133.3 mg g−1 at 100 mA g−1), and ultrahigh salt‐removal rate (0.49 mg g−1 s−1 at 2 A g−1). The synergistic effect, interfacial enhancement, and desalination mechanism of PB/PANI are also revealed through in situ characterization and theoretical calculations. Particularly, a concept for recovery of the energy applied to CDI process is demonstrated. This work provides a facile strategy for design of PB‐based composites, which motivates the development of advanced materials toward high‐performance CDI applications.