Publications by authors named "Pin-jing He"

The complex composition of solid waste leads to the variability of flue gas emissions during its incineration, which poses a challenge to the stable operation of incineration and pollution control systems. To address this problem, the study explored a new method to predict the concentrations of flue gas pollutants during incineration based on the composition of mixed solid waste using machine learning. Through comprehensive model interpretation and analysis, the important influence of waste composition characteristics on the generation of flue gas pollutants during incineration was deeply explored.

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Article Synopsis
  • Researchers are exploring the use of near-infrared hyperspectral imaging (HSI) combined with machine learning to analyze solid waste more efficiently than traditional methods, addressing challenges like contamination from leachates.* -
  • The study introduces hyperspectral unmixing (HU) techniques to identify and quantify different components of solid waste, focusing on how substances like water and oil affect spectral readings.* -
  • The methods developed show promising results in accurately estimating the compositions of solid waste, with validation metrics indicating close alignment with actual components, while also demonstrating the capacity to analyze complex mixed spectroscopic images.*
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Methods used to monitor anaerobic digestion (AD) indicators are commonly based on wet chemical analyses, which consume time and materials. In addition, physical disturbances, such as floating granules (FGs), must be monitored manually. In this study, we present an eco-friendly, high-throughput methodology that uses near-infrared hyperspectral imaging (NIR-HSI) to build a machine-learning model for characterizing the chemical composition of the digestate and a target detection algorithm for identifying FGs.

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  • The study focuses on improving methods for identifying and characterizing both colored and colorless plastic fragments in the environment, addressing the gap in existing research that often neglects colorless fragments.
  • The research utilized near-infrared spectroscopy and various analytical models, finding that partial least squares-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) was the most effective in classifying plastic types with fewer misclassifications.
  • A new two-stage modeling approach was introduced, allowing for over 99% accuracy in identifying colorless fragments, even in complex backgrounds.
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A regular tetrahedron model was established to pierce the fractionation of dissolved organic matter (DOM) among quaternary components by using high-resolution mass spectrometry. The model can stereoscopically visualize molecular formulas of DOM to show the preference to each component according to the position in a regular tetrahedron. A classification method was subsequently developed to divide molecular formulas into 15 categories related to fractionation ratios, the relative change of which was demonstrated to be convergent with the uncertainty of mass peak area.

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Revealing the role of functional redundancy is of great importance considering its key role in maintaining the stability of microbial ecosystems in response to various disturbances. However, experimental evidence on this point is still lacking due to the difficulty in "manipulating" and depicting the degree of redundancy. In this study, manipulative experiments of functional redundancy were conducted by adopting the mixed inoculation strategy to evaluate its role in engineered anaerobic digestion systems under ammonium inhibition conditions.

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  • Halogenated organic compounds in wastewater are problematic because they can remain in the environment and accumulate in living organisms, yet not much is known about them on a molecular level.
  • Researchers conducted a study using advanced techniques to screen for these compounds in waste leachates and their concentrates, identifying 438 unique chlorine- and bromine-containing organic formulas.
  • The study found that traditional extraction methods were less effective than mixed-sorbent techniques, which revealed that over 75% of these compounds remained stable even after undergoing additional treatment processes, highlighting their persistence as contaminants in wastewater.
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Insights into carbon sources (biogenic and fossil carbon) and contents in solid waste are vital for estimating the carbon emissions from incineration plants. However, the traditional methods are time-, labor-, and cost-intensive. Herein, high-quality data sets were established after analyzing the carbon contents and infrared spectra of substantial samples using elemental analysis and attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR), respectively.

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In order to explore the source characteristics as well as the temporal and spatial variations in odor pollution in municipal waste landfills, gas samples were collected from a landfill in an eastern coastal area of China throughout winter and summer. The total concentration of malodorous substances reached 60000 μg·m. There were more types of odor pollutants detected in summer than in winter, the average concentration was 30-300 times higher than that in winter, and the concentration of sulfur compounds increased by 4.

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Rapid determination of moisture content plays an important role in guiding the recycling, treatment and disposal of solid waste, as the moisture content of solid waste directly affects the leachate generation, microbial activities, pollutants leaching and energy consumption during thermal treatment. Traditional moisture content measurement methods are time-consuming, cumbersome and destructive to samples. Therefore, a rapid and nondestructive method for determining the moisture content of solid waste has become a key technology.

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Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) is one of the most commonly used plastics. The treatment and recycling of PVC waste is still challenging, due to its non-biodegradability, low thermal stability, high Cl content and low product value. In this study, a one-pot method was developed to upcycle PVC into valuable carbon materials, pipeline-quality pyrolysis gas and chlorides.

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During coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, the exponential increase in clinical waste (CW) generation has caused immense burden to CW treatment facilities. Co-incineration of CW in municipal solid waste incinerator (MSWI) is an emergency treatment method. A material flow model was developed to estimate the change in feedstock characteristics and resulting acid gas emission under different CW co-incineration ratios.

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Loess is widely distributed in northwestern China. Due to the arid climate and rainstorm erosion, lack of nutrients and microorganisms, as well as severe salinization limits the ecosystem carrying capacity of loess soil, which has become one of the major causes of regional land desertification. The fermentation broth derived from food waste usually contains substantial organic acids and nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus, and it has the advantages of being easily produced industrially and applied as fertilizer.

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Properties of landfill leachate are complex. Therefore, leachate should be treated by combined processes with both biological and advanced methods. Due to the shortage of engineering-scale assessment data about the pollutant treatment contribution of individual process units, existing optimization methods still lack theoretical support.

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The explosive growth of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) wastes has brought serious pollution to the environment. Here, PET waste was upcycled into methane-rich pyrolysis gas and carbon material for energy storage through autogenic pressure pyrolysis and post-activation. The pyrolysis gas contained 34.

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Article Synopsis
  • Solid waste incineration significantly contributes to the emission of harmful pollutants like PCDD/Fs (polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans).
  • Utilizing N- and S-containing compounds can help suppress PCDD/F formation, but they also generate additional pollutants such as ammonia and sulfur oxides.
  • The introduction of calcium oxide (CaO) is proposed as a more effective method, as it can inhibit PCDD/Fs formation and reduce acid gas emissions without creating secondary pollutants, achieving over 93% efficiency in reducing chlorobenzenes at elevated temperatures.
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Biochar is widely used in environmental pollution remediation, soil improvement, and biotransformation of waste. However, the leachable substances within biochar may leach out during the application process, causing detrimental effects to the reaction system and the environment. Here, the simulated solutions (distilled water, buffer salt solution, methanol, and humic acid solution) at different stages of anaerobic digestion were used as the extracting agents, and high-resolution liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry was used to study the dissolved organic composition of biochar leachates.

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Chemical waste compositions are important for municipal solid waste management, as they determine the pollution potentials from different waste strategies. A representative dataset for chemical characteristics of individual waste fractions is frequently required to assess chemical waste composition, but it is usually reported in developed countries and not in developing countries. In this study, a dataset for Chinese waste was established through careful data screening and assessment, named as CN dataset.

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The characteristics of air pollution control (APC) residues are influenced by the furnace type, APC system, and waste composition. In this study, the characteristics of APC residues from nine municipal solid waste incineration plants (the compositions of incinerated solid waste are similar) with different furnace types and APC systems were compared.APC residues contain a great amount of Ca and Cl, and the contents of Al, Si, and Fe in the APC residues from fluidized bed incinerators are higher.

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The direct application of fresh compost is frequent in practice and might cause odor pollution. The present study investigated the characteristics of odor emissions and aimed to estimate the environmental effect of odor over the course of storage and application. An odors emission potential test lasting 21 days was conducted using primarily fermented fruit and vegetable waste compost.

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  • Flue gas desulfurization residues (FGDR) from coal-fired power plants can be reused in civil and agricultural applications, but pollutants may contaminate the environment.
  • The study analyzed FGDR samples from three Chinese power plants, focusing on their physical-chemical characteristics, leaching potential, and phytotoxicity to wheat seeds.
  • Results indicated that while FGDR leachates had lower toxicity than hazardous waste limits, certain metals like Ba and Cu negatively impacted seed germination, suggesting leachate phytotoxicity must be assessed before utilizing FGDR.
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The use of coal fly ash (CFA), municipal solid waste incinerator bottom ash (MSWIBA) and flue gas desulfurization residue (FGDR) in road construction has become very common owing to its economical advantages. However, these residues may contain toxic constituents that pose an environmental risk if they leach out and flow through the soil, surface water and groundwater. Therefore, it is necessary to assess the ecotoxicity and groundwater impact of these residues before decisions can be made regarding their utilization for road construction.

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Incineration has become an important municipal solid waste (MSW) treatment strategy, and generates a large amount of bottom ash (BA). Although some BA is reused, much BA and pretreatment residues from BA recycling are disposed in landfill. When BA and MSW are co-landfilled together, acid neutralization capacity and alkaline earth metal dissolution of BA, as well as different components of MSW may change environmental conditions within the landfill, so the degradation of organic matter and the physical and chemical properties of leachate would be affected.

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The high food waste content (HFWC) MSW at a landfill has the characteristics of rapid hydrolysis process, large leachate production rate and fast gas generation. The liquid-gas interactions at HFWC-MSW landfills are prominent and complex, and still remain significant challenges. This paper focuses on the liquid-gas interactions of HFWC-MSW observed from a large-scale bioreactor landfill experiment (5m×5m×7.

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Bio-stability is a key feature for the utilization and final disposal of biowaste-derived residues, such as aerobic compost or vermicompost of food waste, bio-dried waste, anaerobic digestate or landfilled waste. The present paper reviews conventional methods and advanced techniques used for the assessment of bio-stability. The conventional methods are reclassified into two categories.

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