Unraveling the Potential of Electrochemical pH-Swing Processes for Carbon Dioxide Capture and Utilization.

Global warming, driven by the accumulation of anthropogenic greenhouse gases, particularly CO, in the atmosphere, has garnered significant attention due to its detrimental environmental impacts. To combat this critical issue, the deployment of CO capture and utilization (CCU) strategies has been considered as one of the technology-based solutions, leading to extensive scientific and engineering research. Electrochemical pH-swing (EPS) processes offer a promising approach to diverse CCU pathways, such as the delivery of pure CO gas, the delivery of bicarbonate (e.

Carbon Capture: Theoretical Guidelines for Activated Carbon-Based CO Adsorption Material Evaluation.

Activated carbon (AC)-based materials have shown promising performance in carbon capture, offering low cost and sustainable sourcing from abundant natural resources. Despite ACs growing as a new class of materials, theoretical guidelines for evaluating their viability in carbon capture are a crucial research gap. We address this gap by developing a hierarchical guideline, based on fundamental gas-solid interaction strength, that underpins the success and scalability of AC-based materials.

Integrated carbon capture and conversion: A review on C product mechanisms and mechanism-guided strategies.

The need to reduce atmospheric CO concentrations necessitates CO capture technologies for conversion into stable products or long-term storage. A single pot solution that simultaneously captures and converts CO could minimize additional costs and energy demands associated with CO transport, compression, and transient storage. While a variety of reduction products exist, currently, only conversion to C products including ethanol and ethylene are economically advantageous.

Catalytic Processes to Accelerate Decarbonization in a Net-Zero Carbon World.

Reducing carbon dioxide emissions is one of the critical challenges to mitigate global climate change, which is having detrimental impacts on society and the environment. Fossil fuel combustion in transportation, power generation, and industrial processes is the dominant contributor to carbon emissions. Over the past decades, sustainable solutions and strategies have been investigated and developed to enable decarbonization.

Contribution of sewage to occurrence of phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitors in natural water.

Phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitors (PDE-5i, such as Sildenafil, Tadalafil and Vardenafil, mainly prescribed to treat erectile dysfunction) and their generic drug equivalents have been widely marketed and consumed in Korea. From the concentrations detected in wastewater, we could deduce that relatively large amounts of PDE-5i were consumed without a legal prescription. Thus, PDE-5i's presence in the environment via sewage is unavoidable, and their environmental fate within a sewage treatment plant (STP) should be evaluated.

Accelerating Innovation that Enhances Resource Recovery in the Wastewater Sector: Advancing a National Testbed Network.

This Feature examines significant challenges and opportunities to spur innovation and accelerate adoption of reliable technologies that enhance integrated resource recovery in the wastewater sector through the creation of a national testbed network. The network is a virtual entity that connects appropriate physical testing facilities, and other components needed for a testbed network, with researchers, investors, technology providers, utilities, regulators, and other stakeholders to accelerate the adoption of innovative technologies and processes that are needed for the water resource recovery facility of the future. Here we summarize and extract key issues and developments, to provide a strategy for the wastewater sector to accelerate a path forward that leads to new sustainable water infrastructures.

Printing-Assisted Surface Modifications of Patterned Ultrafiltration Membranes.

Understanding and restricting microbial surface attachment will enhance wastewater treatment with membranes. We report a maskless lithographic patterning technique for the generation of patterned polymer coatings on ultrafiltration membranes. Polyethylene glycol, zwitterionic, or negatively charged hydrophilic polymer compositions in parallel- or perpendicular-striped patterns with respect to feed flow were evaluated using wastewater.

Achieving the Great Lakes Initiative mercury limits in oil refinery effluent.

To meet the stringent Great Lakes Initiative (GLI) wastewater discharge mercury (Hg) limit of 1.3 ppt (ng/L), mercury removal technologies need to be identified and investigated. The goals of this study were to (1) identify and assess available wastewater treatment technologies for mercury removal from an oil refinery wastewater; and (2) conduct bench-scale tests to provide comparable, transparent, and uniform results to assess their performance at low mercury concentrations.

The effects of substituents on the geometry of π-π interactions.

We have designed and utilized a simple molecular recognition system to study the substituent effects in aromatic interactions. Recently, we showed that 3- and 3,5-disubstituted benzoyl leucine diethyl amides with aromatic rings of varying electronic character organized into homochiral dimers in the solid state through a parallel displaced π-π interaction and two hydrogen bonds, but no such homochiral dimerization was observed for the unsubstituted case. This phenomenon supports the hypothesis that substituents stabilize π-π interactions regardless of their electronic character.

A simple chiral recognition system to investigate substituent effects on π-π interactions.

We have used a simple molecular recognition system to study substituent effects in aromatic interactions. A series of substituted benzoylleucine diethyl amides with aromatic rings of varying electronic character were crystallized. All of the substituted dimers organized into homochiral dimers in the solid state but with pronounced differences in regard to the orientation of the aromatic rings with respect to each other.

Achieving very low mercury levels in refinery wastewater by membrane filtration.

Microfiltration (MF), ultrafiltration (UF), nanofiltration (NF) and reverse osmosis (RO) membranes were evaluated for their ability to achieve the world's most stringent Hg discharge criterion (<1.3ng/L) in an oil refinery's wastewater. The membrane processes were operated at three different pressures to demonstrate the potential for each membrane technology to achieve the targeted effluent mercury concentrations.

A novel framework to classify marginal land for sustainable biomass feedstock production.

To achieve food and energy security, sustainable bioenergy has become an important goal for many countries. The use of marginal lands to produce energy crops is one strategy for achieving this goal, but what is marginal land? Current definitions generally focus on a single criterion, primarily agroeconomic profitability. Herein, we present a framework that incorporates multiple criteria including profitability of current land use, soil health indicators (erosion, flooding, drainage, or high slopes), and environmental degradation resulting from contamination of surface water or groundwater resources.

Removal of enzymatic and fermentation inhibitory compounds from biomass slurries for enhanced biorefinery process efficiencies.

Within the biorefinery paradigm, many non-monomeric sugar compounds have been shown to be inhibitory to enzymes and microbial organisms that are used for hydrolysis and fermentation. Here, two novel separation technologies, polyelectrolyte polymer adsorption and resin-wafer electrodeionization (RW-EDI), have been evaluated to detoxify a dilute acid pretreated biomass slurry. Results showed that detoxification of a dilute acid pretreated ponderosa pine slurry by sequential polyelectrolyte and RW-EDI treatments was very promising, with significant removal of acetic acid, 5-hydroxymethyl furfural, and furfural (up to 77%, 60%, and 74% removed, respectively) along with >97% removal of sulfuric acid.

An attempt towards simultaneous biobased solvent based extraction of proteins and enzymatic saccharification of cellulosic materials from distiller's grains and solubles.

Distiller's grains and solubles (DGS) is the major co-product of corn dry mill ethanol production, and is composed of 30% protein and 30-40% polysaccharides. We report a strategy for simultaneous extraction of protein with food-grade biobased solvents (ethyl lactate, d-limonene, and distilled methyl esters) and enzymatic saccharification of glucan in DGS. This approach would produce a high-value animal feed while simultaneously producing additional sugars for ethanol production.

Biofuels, land, and water: a systems approach to sustainability.

There is a strong societal need to evaluate and understand the sustainability of biofuels, especially because of the significant increases in production mandated by many countries, including the United States. Sustainability will be a strong factor in the regulatory environment and investments in biofuels. Biomass feedstock production is an important contributor to environmental, social, and economic impacts from biofuels.

Strong enantioselective self-recognition of a small chiral molecule.

In the present report, we have crystallized a single enantiomer and the racemate of N-3,5-dinitrobenzoyl (DNB) leucine. In both cases, the X-ray structures show clear evidence of homochiral dimerization in the solid state. Moreover, only homochiral dimers were observed in the unit cell of the racemate, a result of solid-state enantioselective complexation.

Formation of stable Meisenheimer adduct ion pairs in apolar solvents: implications for stereoselective reactions.

[reaction: see text] A detailed study concerning the formation of Meisenheimer adducts in biphasic solvent systems is described. The process relies on utilizing a significantly lipophilic quaternary ammonium salt to transfer a nucleophile (e.g.

Enantioselective hydrolysis of N-acylated alpha-amino esters at a biphasic interface: tandem reaction kinetic resolution using a chiral complexing agent.

[reaction: see text] Highly enantioselective hydrolytic kinetic resolutions of esters derived from N-acylated alpha-amino acids proceed rapidly at hydrocarbon/water interfaces in the presence of a proline-derived chiral selector. When performed in tandem with an enantioselective biphasic esterification reaction, esters of 100% enantiomeric excess are obtained