Publications by authors named "Thanh Ngoc-Dan Cao"

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.

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In terrestrial ecosystems, the nitrogen dynamics, including NO production, are majorly regulated by a complex consortium of microbes favored by different substrates and environmental conditions. To better predict the daily, seasonal and annual variation in NO fluxes, it is critical to estimate the temperature sensitivity of different microbial groups for NO fluxes under oxic and suboxic conditions prevalent in soil and wetlands. Here, we studied the temperature sensitivity of two groups of ammonia oxidizers, archaea (AOA) and bacteria (AOB), in relation to NO fluxes through both nitrification and nitrifier-denitrification pathways across a wide temperature gradient (10-55 °C).

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Microbes are a critical component of soil ecosystems, performing crucial functions in biogeochemical cycling, carbon sequestration, and plant health. However, it remains uncertain how their community structure, functioning, and resultant nutrient cycling, including net GHG fluxes, would respond to climate change at different scales. Here, we review global and regional climate change effects on soil microbial community structure and functioning, as well as the climate-microbe feedback and plant-microbe interactions.

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For years, agrochemical fertilizers have been used in agriculture for crop production. However, intensive utilization of chemical fertilizers is not an ecological and environmental choice since they are destroying soil health and causing an emerging threat to agricultural production on a global scale. Under the circumstances of the increasing utilization of chemical fertilizers, cultivating microalgae to produce biofertilizers would be a wise solution since desired environmental targets will be obtained including (1) replacing chemical fertilizer while improving crop yields and soil health; (2) reducing the harvest of non-renewable elements from limited natural resources for chemical fertilizers production, and (3) mitigating negative influences of climate change through CO capture through microalgae cultivation.

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Article Synopsis
  • Bioelectrochemical systems like microbial fuel cells (MFCs) can treat wastewater while generating renewable energy, with recent advancements introducing photoelectrodes to enhance their efficiency, leading to photo-assisted microbial fuel cells (photo-MFCs).
  • These photo-MFCs utilize sunlight and microorganisms to convert both chemical and light energy into electricity, making them a dual-functioning technology.
  • The review highlights recent developments in photo-MFCs, such as the types of photosynthetic microorganisms used, as well as the materials and methods for creating effective photoelectrodes, while emphasizing the need for more research to improve system stability for practical use.
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Laminar-flow microfluidic microbial fuel cell (LMMFC) has attracted attention due to the advantage of the liquid-liquid interface between anolyte and catholyte without the use of membrane as a separator resulting in less fabrication cost. Unlike previous studies of LMMFC using syringe pumps, this study proposes the use of osmotic pumps to feed anolyte and catholyte in the microchannel without any additional power supply. The osmotic pump was constructed with two cylindrical chambers separated by a forward osmosis membrane, with the initial draw solution concentration of 90 g l NaCl.

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The development of cost-effective and energy-efficient technologies to recover nutrients from digestate is important. Anaerobic digestate can be concentrated into bio-nutrient products through an electrodialysis (ED) process in an energy-efficient manner. Despite recent advances, the operation modes of ED for nutrient recovery from swine digestate are yet to be systematically evaluated from the perspective of energy-water efficiencies, and the determination of optimal operations in ED units is still ambiguous.

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Article Synopsis
  • * Membrane bioreactor (MBR) processes show promise for treating saline wastewater by adapting the microbial community to varying salinity levels.
  • * This study reviews MBR applications in saline treatment and proposes incorporating carbon dioxide capture and storage to support a circular economy and achieve zero emissions.
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Understanding the environmental niche segregation of ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) and bacteria (AOB) and its impact on their relative contributions to nitrification and nitrous oxide (NO) production is essential for predicting NO dynamics within an ecosystem. Here, we used ammonia oxidizer-specific inhibitors to measure the differential contributions of AOA and AOB to potential ammonia oxidization (PAO) and NO fluxes over pH (4.0-9.

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This study is aimed to comprehend the treatment of non-submerged attached growth systems using bio-sponge, bio-cord, and bio-cloth media. Three reactors were set up with internal recirculation ratio of 1 (IR = 1) and similar media surface area. Bio-sponge and bio-cloth reactors showed removal of COD (79 vs.

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Nitrification inhibitors (NIs) such as dicyandiamide (DCD), 3,4-dimethylpyrazole phosphate (DMPP), and allylthiourea (AT) are commonly used to suppress ammonia oxidization at different time scales varying from a few hours to several months. Although the responses of NIs to edaphic and temperature conditions have been studied, the influence of the aforementioned factors on their inhibitory effect remains unknown. In this study, laboratory-scale experiments were conducted to assess the short-term (24 h) influence of eight abiotic and biotic factors on the inhibitory effects of DCD, DMPP, and AT across six cropped and non-cropped soils at two temperature conditions with three covariates of soil texture.

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Progressive freezing is a solvent purification technology with low energy requirements and high concentration efficiency. Although these advantages make it a promising technology, the technique has never been explored for draw solution recovery for forward osmosis (FO). Hence, in this study, the progressive freezing process was used to concentrate three common diluted draw solutions: NaCl, MgCl, and EDTA-2Na with different ice front speeds, stirring rates, and initial draw solution concentrations.

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