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Hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) is an effective way to treat solid wastes with high moisture content. The co-hydrothermal liquefaction (co-HTL) experiments of oily scum and poplar sawdust biochar at the different hydrothermal temperatures were performed in this work. The changes of the appearance and components of the liquid products were comprehensively studied. The results showed that the addition of biochar into oily scum significantly reduced the moisture content of the residue hydrochars obtained after co-HTL. As the hydrothermal temperature increased, the liquid products obtained from co-HTL turned clearer and lighter in color, and the recovery rate of the liquid products significantly increased. The co-HTL of bi-ochar and oily scum could effectively improve the liquid quality and enhance the recovery rate of hydrochars. The carbon numbers of the liquid products obtained from co-HTL were concentrated in C5-C11, which were main compositions of gas-oline. This work can provide basic data and theoretical reference for oily scum efficient treatment and engineering practice.

Climate change is an emerging global health crisis, disproportionately affecting low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) where health outcomes are increasingly compromised by environmental stressors such as pollution, natural disasters, and human migration. With a focus on promoting health equity, Global Surgery advocates for expanding access to surgical care and enhancing health outcomes, particularly in resource-limited and disaster-affected areas like LMICs. The healthcare industry—and more specifically, surgical care—significantly contributes to the global carbon footprint, primarily through resource-intensive settings, i.e. operating rooms that generate greenhouse gases and substantial medical waste. Therefore, Global Surgery efforts aimed at improving surgical access through an increase in surgical volumes may inadvertently exacerbate health challenges for vulnerable populations by further contributing to environmental degradation. This predicament is particularly pronounced in LMICs, who already suffer from a disproportionate share of the global burden of disease, and where the demand for surgery is rising without corresponding resilient infrastructure. LMICs face a double jeopardy of health inequity coupled with climate vulnerability. As a movement positioned to improve health around the world, Global Surgery has an increasingly significant role in envisioning and ensuring a sustainable future. Global Surgery initiatives must prioritise sustainable infrastructure in both high-income countries (HICs) and LMICs, all while accounting for the unequal polluting contributions between HICs and LMICs and, consequently, moral responsibilities moving forward. Moreover, through targeting upstream causes of poor health at urban and perioperative levels, Global Surgery’s interventions may help to reduce the global burden of disease—avoiding preventable surgeries and their carbon footprints from the outset. Altogether, Global Surgery and climate change are two matters of social justice whose solutions must synergistically centralise the health of both the planet and its most vulnerable people.

Drought-tolerant species play a crucial role in maintaining ecosystem services in arid and semi-arid regions wherein subject to rapid climate change. However, how future climate change affect the distribution of drought-tolerant plants with different growth forms (e.g., herb and woody) remains largely unknown. Here, we used the MaxEnt model to simulate the potential species distribution under current conditions, and predicted the future species distribution of 82 common drought-tolerant plants in China under two time periods (2041-2060 and 2081-2100) and three climate change scenarios (SSP126, SSP245 and SSP585) in the future. We found that the western and northern regions of China are hotspots for drought-tolerant plant distribution. Compared with other predictors, aridity index (AI) explained the largest portion of variation (45%) in the distribution patterns of drought-tolerant plant plants. Climate change would change the distribution of drought-tolerant plants, with more than 50% of the species showing a trend of shrinking ranges in China. For both herb and woody plants, the highest turnover values were observed under SSP585 for the period 2081-2100, reaching 37.67% and 29.08%, respectively. Our results highlighted that herb and woody plants respond differently to climate change stresses, with herb plants projected to greatly expand their ranges in the future. These insights are vital for evaluating the impacts of climate change on biodiversity and informing the development of effective adaptation strategies.

As population grows, demand for reliable and sustainable energy increases prompting the need for innovative solutions. The numerous strategies are needed to shift centralized power generation to distributed generation in the evolution of smart energy systems. The response and electricity market paradigms using multiple loads are missing in literature. In this paper, multiple loads are considered to propose optimal energy hub modeling comprised of the various sources and storage. The proposed system is modelled using demand response technique. The exact method-based optimization is used to simulate the proposed model in MATLAB. The results obtained show the effectiveness of the proposed model to reduce the operational cost and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. A case study is taken, where a poultry farm producing approximately 1.94 million tons of poultry waste annually, is used to evaluate the proposed model. For the industrial load, the optimized scheduling reduced the operational cost to $161.8 as compared to $1670 relying only on the utility grid. For the residential load, the optimized cost is reduced by -$3.3 from the pre-optimization cost of $2.7. This work highlights the economic and environmental benefits, particularly in developing countries where biomass-based energy generation is yet to be fully explored.

Science is now in a new era of exposome research that strives to build a more all-inclusive, panoramic view in the quest for answers; this is especially true in the field of toxicology. Alcohol exposure researchers have been examining the multivariate co-exposures that may either exacerbate or initiate alcohol-related tissue/organ injuries. This manuscript presents selected key variables that represent the Alcohol Exposome. The primary variables that make up the Alcohol Exposome can include comorbidities such as cigarettes, poor diet, occupational hazards, environmental hazards, infectious agents, and aging. In addition to representing multiple factors, the Alcohol Exposome examines the various types of intercellular communications that are carried from one organ system to another and may greatly impact the types of injuries and metabolites caused by alcohol exposure. The intent of defining the Alcohol Exposome is to bring the newly expanded definition of Exposomics, meaning the study of the exposome, to the field of alcohol research and to emphasize the need for examining research results in a non-isolated environment representing a more relevant manner in which all human physiology exists.

The development of advanced optical probes for point-of-care testing holds great importance in the field of diagnostic technologies. This study focused on the synthesis of a probe featuring both fluorescent and photothermal responses with single excitation wavelength, which was achieved through the combination of oxidized camellia oleifera shell powder (OC) and Prussian blue nanoparticles (PBNPs). Notably, OC derived from the direct processing of raw material showed fluorescent and phosphorescent emissions simultaneously, and the positions of the two peaks overlapped with the absorbance range of PBNPs, making the fluorescent and phosphorescent emissions of OC effectively quenched by PBNPs. Meanwhile, the photothermal property of PBNPs was activated by the phosphorescent emission of OC through photoinduced energy transfer. As a proof of concept, OC@PBNPs was applied in the dual-channel immunoassay, in which illegal addictive aminopyrine (AP) was chosen as the detection target. Furthermore, a portable device was developed to capture the fluorescent and photothermal signals of OC@PBNPs, rendering the detection method based on OC@PBNPs suitable for point-of-care testing (POCT).

AbstractClimate change will affect both the mean and the variability in environmental conditions and may have major negative impacts on population densities in the future. For annual plants that already live in an extreme environment like the Sonoran Desert, keeping a fraction of their seeds dormant underground (for possibly years at a time) is critical to survive. Here, we consider how this form of bet hedging (i.e., delayed germination) for 10 Sonoran Desert annuals mediates responses to precipitation shifts. We use a demographic model parameterized with long-term field and precipitation data to explore how forecasted changes in precipitation impact annual plant species' population densities. We then examine how instantaneous evolution of optimal germination fractions in the shifted precipitation regimes bolsters population densities. Our results indicate that overall less rainfall and, to a lesser extent, increased variance in rainfall drive population levels down. Instantaneous evolution of optimal germination fractions in new regimes benefited species' populations only marginally, and only for small to moderate shifts in precipitation. Thus, even rapid evolution is unlikely to save populations experiencing larger shifts in precipitation. Finally, we predict that specialists that can capitalize on wet-year bonanzas or are water use efficient will be the most resilient to precipitation shifts as long as their seed survivorships are sufficiently high.

Environmental particulate pollution is a major global environmental health risk factor, which is associated with numerous adverse health outcomes, negatively impacting public health in many countries, including China. Despite the implementation of strict air quality management policies in China and a significant reduction in PM2.5 concentrations in recent years, the health burden caused by PM2.5 pollution has not decreased as expected. Therefore, a comprehensive analysis of the health burden caused by PM2.5 is necessary for more effective air quality management. This study makes an innovative contribution by integrating the Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), and Soil-Adjusted Vegetation Index (SAVI), providing a comprehensive framework to assess the health impacts of green space coverage, promoting healthy urban environments and sustainable development. Using Nanjing, China, as a case study, we constructed a health impact assessment system based on PM2.5 concentrations and quantitatively analyzed the spatiotemporal evolution of premature deaths caused by PM2.5 from 2000 to 2020. Using Multiscale Geographically Weighted Regression (MGWR), we explored the impact of greening improvement on premature deaths attributed to PM2.5 and proposed relevant sustainable governance strategies. The results showed that (1) premature deaths caused by PM2.5 in Nanjing could be divided into two stages: 2000–2015 and 2015–2020. During the second stage, deaths due to respiratory and cardiovascular diseases decreased by 3105 and 1714, respectively. (2) The spatial variation process was slow, with the overall evolution direction predominantly from the southeast to northwest, and the spatial distribution center gradually shifted southward. On a global scale, the Moran’s I index increased from 0.247251 and 0.240792 in 2000 to 0.472201 and 0.468193 in 2020. The hotspot analysis revealed that high–high correlations slowly gathered toward central Nanjing, while the proportion of cold spots increased. (3) The MGWR results indicated a significant negative correlation between changes in green spaces and PM2.5-related premature deaths, especially in densely vegetated areas. This study comprehensively considered the spatiotemporal changes in PM2.5-related premature deaths and examined the health benefits of green space improvement, providing valuable references for promoting healthy and sustainable urban environmental governance and air quality management.