Nature Sustainability最新文献_第6页

Chain-length-controllable upcycling of polyolefins to sulfate detergents 聚烯烃链长可控升级循环制备硫酸盐洗涤剂

IF 25.7 1区环境科学与生态学

Nature Sustainability Pub Date : 2024-11-18 DOI: 10.1038/s41893-024-01464-x

Nuwayo Eric Munyaneza, Ruiyang Ji, Adrian DiMarco, Joel Miscall, Lisa Stanley, Nicholas Rorrer, Rui Qiao, Guoliang Liu

{"title":"Chain-length-controllable upcycling of polyolefins to sulfate detergents","authors":"Nuwayo Eric Munyaneza, Ruiyang Ji, Adrian DiMarco, Joel Miscall, Lisa Stanley, Nicholas Rorrer, Rui Qiao, Guoliang Liu","doi":"10.1038/s41893-024-01464-x","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41893-024-01464-x","url":null,"abstract":"Escalating global plastic pollution and the depletion of fossil-based resources underscore the urgent need for innovative end-of-life plastic management strategies in the context of a circular economy. Thermolysis is capable of upcycling end-of-life plastics to intermediate molecules suitable for downstream conversion to eventually high-value chemicals, but tuning the molar mass distribution of the products is challenging. Here we report a temperature-gradient thermolysis strategy for the conversion of polyethylene and polypropylene into hydrocarbons with tunable molar mass distributions. The whole thermolysis process is catalyst- and hydrogen-free. The thermolysis of polyethylene and polyethylene/polypropylene mixtures with tailored temperature gradients generated oil with an average chain length of ~C14. The oil featured a high concentration of synthetically useful α-olefins. Computational fluid dynamics simulations revealed that regulating the reactor wall temperature was the key to tuning the hydrocarbon distributions. Subsequent oxidation of the obtained α-olefins by sulfuric acid and neutralization by potassium hydroxide afforded sulfate detergents with excellent foaming behaviour and emulsifying capacity and low critical micelle concentration. Overall, this work provides a viable approach to producing value-added chemicals from end-of-life plastics, improving the circularity of the anthropogenic carbon cycle. The controllable conversion of plastic wastes to products with tailored molar mass would facilitate waste valorization but remains challenging. This study presents a catalyst- and hydrogen-free temperature-gradient thermolysis strategy to achieve this goal.","PeriodicalId":19056,"journal":{"name":"Nature Sustainability","volume":"7 12","pages":"1681-1690"},"PeriodicalIF":25.7,"publicationDate":"2024-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142845147","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Upcycling of polyolefins into detergents 将聚烯烃升级再造为洗涤剂

IF 25.7 1区环境科学与生态学

Nature Sustainability Pub Date : 2024-11-18 DOI: 10.1038/s41893-024-01465-w

Fei Huang, Fan Zhang

引用次数: 0

Landscape patterns in stand-replacing disturbances across the world’s forests

IF 25.7 1区环境科学与生态学

Nature Sustainability Pub Date : 2024-11-15 DOI: 10.1038/s41893-024-01450-3

Nezha Acil, Jonathan P. Sadler, Cornelius Senf, Susanne Suvanto, Thomas A. M. Pugh

{"title":"Landscape patterns in stand-replacing disturbances across the world’s forests","authors":"Nezha Acil, Jonathan P. Sadler, Cornelius Senf, Susanne Suvanto, Thomas A. M. Pugh","doi":"10.1038/s41893-024-01450-3","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41893-024-01450-3","url":null,"abstract":"The spatial imprint of forest disturbances, which can result from a variety of anthropogenic and natural causes, is important in shaping the form and function of the world’s forests. However, we lack a systematic assessment of how the forms of forest disturbances differ globally, which could help in sustainable forest policy and management initiatives to protect forest biomes. Here we produce a global-scale quantification of disturbance patch structures. Using indicators of magnitude, complexity and context, we found that the forms of stand-replacing disturbances can be classified into four broad patterns, whose spatial dominance varies across regions. Human activities were shown to introduce disturbance structures that are not naturally common, especially in the tropics. The consistency of these patterns across biomes outside intact forests suggests that a continuation of current dynamics may lead to a structural homogenization of the world’s forests, with potential consequences for forest ecology and functions. These results provide a greater understanding of the mechanisms governing forest dynamics and elucidating the causal agents of disturbances. This will be a key step towards building more reliable projections of future forest conditions, informing policymaking and ensuring the sustainability of forest management. Forests are subject to natural and human-induced disturbances, which can be important in shaping their form and function. In this study, the authors examine the landscape patterns of global forest disturbance and their drivers to better inform sustainable forest management and policy.","PeriodicalId":19056,"journal":{"name":"Nature Sustainability","volume":"8 1","pages":"86-98"},"PeriodicalIF":25.7,"publicationDate":"2024-11-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-024-01450-3.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143121556","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Publisher Correction: Direct and efficient in situ rubidium extraction from potassium chloride salts 出版商更正：直接和有效地从氯化钾盐中原位提取铷

IF 25.7 1区环境科学与生态学

Nature Sustainability Pub Date : 2024-11-10 DOI: 10.1038/s41893-024-01486-5

Xulong Chen, Wenping Hu

引用次数: 0

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from North American soybean production 减少北美大豆生产的温室气体排放

IF 25.7 1区环境科学与生态学

Nature Sustainability Pub Date : 2024-11-05 DOI: 10.1038/s41893-024-01458-9

Tomás Della Chiesa, Daniel Northrup, Fernando E. Miguez, Sotirios V. Archontoulis, Mitchell E. Baum, Rodney T. Venterea, Bryan D. Emmett, Robert W. Malone, Javed Iqbal, Magdalena Necpalova, Michael J. Castellano

{"title":"Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from North American soybean production","authors":"Tomás Della Chiesa, Daniel Northrup, Fernando E. Miguez, Sotirios V. Archontoulis, Mitchell E. Baum, Rodney T. Venterea, Bryan D. Emmett, Robert W. Malone, Javed Iqbal, Magdalena Necpalova, Michael J. Castellano","doi":"10.1038/s41893-024-01458-9","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41893-024-01458-9","url":null,"abstract":"The agricultural sector is responsible for substantial amounts of greenhouse gas emissions that exacerbate climate change. Such greenhouse gas emissions from upland crops are difficult to abate because they are dominated by nitrous oxide (N2O) production from soil processes. Strategies to reduce these emissions focus on N fertilizer management, and there is a widespread assumption that legume crops, which do not receive N fertilizer, emit little N2O. Here we show that this assumption is incorrect; approximately 40% of N2O emissions from the most extensive cropping system in North America—the maize–soybean rotation—occur during the soybean phase. Yet, due to the lack of N fertilizer input, opportunities for emissions abatement from the soybean phase are unclear. Using models of cropping systems, we developed a strategy that combines cover-crop management and earlier planting of extended growth soybean varieties to reduce emissions from soybean production by 33%. These practices, which complement N fertilizer management in maize, are widely accessible and represent an immediate, climate-smart strategy to reduce nitrous oxide emissions from soybean production, thus not only contributing to climate-change mitigation but also maintaining productivity while adapting to changing weather patterns. Soil processes involved in agricultural practices emit considerable levels of nitrous oxide, which detrimentally contribute to climate change. This study explores strategies to reduce nitrous oxide emissions while maintaining crop productivity in the US maize–soybean rotational cropping system.","PeriodicalId":19056,"journal":{"name":"Nature Sustainability","volume":"7 12","pages":"1608-1615"},"PeriodicalIF":25.7,"publicationDate":"2024-11-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-024-01458-9.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142845148","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Community-based propagation to scale up educational innovations in sustainability 以社区为基础的宣传，扩大可持续发展方面的教育创新

IF 25.7 1区环境科学与生态学

Nature Sustainability Pub Date : 2024-11-04 DOI: 10.1038/s41893-024-01446-z

Juliette N. Rooney-Varga, Florian Kapmeier, Charles Henderson, David N. Ford

{"title":"Community-based propagation to scale up educational innovations in sustainability","authors":"Juliette N. Rooney-Varga, Florian Kapmeier, Charles Henderson, David N. Ford","doi":"10.1038/s41893-024-01446-z","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41893-024-01446-z","url":null,"abstract":"Many high-quality educational innovations are freely available, and some are known to motivate evidence-based climate and sustainability action. Typically, efforts to propagate educational innovations rely on outreach and word-of-mouth diffusion, but these approaches tend to achieve little. We develop and analyse a dynamic computational model to understand why and to test other propagation strategies. Our analysis reveals that outreach has limited impact and does little to accelerate word-of-mouth adoption under conditions typical in higher education. Instead, we find that community-based propagation can rapidly accelerate adoption, as is also shown by a small number of successful real-world scaling efforts. This approach supports a community of ‘ambassadors’, facilitating and rewarding their sharing the innovation with potential adopters. Community-based propagation can generate exponential growth in adopters, rapidly outpacing outreach and word-of-mouth propagation. Without it, we are unlikely to rapidly scale the educational innovations needed to build urgently needed capacity in sustainability. Innovative educational methods can be difficult to spread across universities and instructors. This study examines the best routes to rapidly scale new methods in sustainability education.","PeriodicalId":19056,"journal":{"name":"Nature Sustainability","volume":"7 12","pages":"1740-1750"},"PeriodicalIF":25.7,"publicationDate":"2024-11-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-024-01446-z.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142845166","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Direct and efficient in situ rubidium extraction from potassium chloride salts 从氯化钾盐中直接高效地原位萃取铷

IF 25.7 1区环境科学与生态学

Nature Sustainability Pub Date : 2024-11-01 DOI: 10.1038/s41893-024-01449-w

Xulong Chen, Wenping Hu

{"title":"Direct and efficient in situ rubidium extraction from potassium chloride salts","authors":"Xulong Chen, Wenping Hu","doi":"10.1038/s41893-024-01449-w","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41893-024-01449-w","url":null,"abstract":"Rubidium (Rb) is a valuable rare alkali metal that plays a crucial role in various high-tech applications, but extracting Rb from conventional sources poses sustainability challenges. A considerable amount of Rb is found in potassium chloride (KCl) salts, which can serve as a sustainable source depending on the extraction methods. Current liquid-phase methods are problematic due to the low Rb/K separation factor and high consumption of energy, water and chemicals. Extracting Rb directly from solid KCl salts is a promising approach, but achieving efficient recovery remains a challenge. Here we propose a crystal ripening microextraction strategy that enables in situ extraction of Rb from solid KCl salts with high selectivity, simplicity and high efficiency. By applying this strategy, we recovered 92.37% of Rb from KCl salts with an initial Rb content of 113 ppm. Compared with liquid-phase extraction, our approach results in a 97.57% reduction in energy consumption, a 22.24% increase in recovery efficiency and a 13.46-fold higher Rb/K separation factor, which substantially enhance environmental and economic benefits. In addition, this approach is suitable for recovering other target metals needed for various industrial applications directly from different solid metallic salts, providing a pathway to improve the sustainability of critical metal supply. Sustainably extracting rubidium (Rb), a valuable critical metal, from alternative sources remains challenging. Here the authors report a crystal ripening microextraction strategy that allows efficient Rb extraction from potassium chloride salts, with large environmental and economic benefits.","PeriodicalId":19056,"journal":{"name":"Nature Sustainability","volume":"7 12","pages":"1672-1680"},"PeriodicalIF":25.7,"publicationDate":"2024-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142845234","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Pathways for sustainable coexistence with wildfires 与野火可持续共存的途径

IF 25.7 1区环境科学与生态学

Nature Sustainability Pub Date : 2024-11-01 DOI: 10.1038/s41893-024-01460-1

David M. J. S. Bowman

引用次数: 0

Greener sourcing of rubidium 更环保的铷来源

IF 25.7 1区环境科学与生态学

Nature Sustainability Pub Date : 2024-11-01 DOI: 10.1038/s41893-024-01459-8

Lixi Chen, Shuao Wang

引用次数: 0

Meeting the EAT-Lancet ‘healthy’ diet target while protecting land and water resources 在保护土地和水资源的同时，实现《EAT-Lancet》的“健康”饮食目标

IF 25.7 1区环境科学与生态学

Nature Sustainability Pub Date : 2024-11-01 DOI: 10.1038/s41893-024-01457-w

Maria Cristina Rulli, Martina Sardo, Livia Ricciardi, Camilla Govoni, Nikolas Galli, Davide Danilo Chiarelli, Adam M. Komarek, Paolo D’Odorico

{"title":"Meeting the EAT-Lancet ‘healthy’ diet target while protecting land and water resources","authors":"Maria Cristina Rulli, Martina Sardo, Livia Ricciardi, Camilla Govoni, Nikolas Galli, Davide Danilo Chiarelli, Adam M. Komarek, Paolo D’Odorico","doi":"10.1038/s41893-024-01457-w","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41893-024-01457-w","url":null,"abstract":"Healthy diets are known for their co-benefits of reducing environmental impacts and enabling the same agricultural resources to feed a larger human population. The EAT-Lancet (healthy reference) diet allows for compound benefits to human health and the ecosystem. It is unclear, however, to what extent the requirements of the EAT-Lancet diet may be sustainably met at the global scale. Here we combine a spatially distributed agro-hydrological model with a linear optimization analysis to relocate crops, minimizing, at the country scale, the irrigation-water consumption while improving the worldwide achievement of the EAT-Lancet nutritional goals. To that end, we define six dietary scenarios based on country-specific dietary habits from religion-related traditions, and existing livestock production systems, maintaining the same agricultural trade patterns (import–export relations). Our results suggest that an optimized global cropland allocation, and an adjustment in trade flows, would allow the global population to be fed with the EAT-Lancet diet, with a global reduction of the cultivated area of 37–40%, irrigation-water consumption of 78% (±3%), and unsustainably irrigated areas of 22%. The adoption of the EAT-Lancet diet increases the global food trade share of global food production, measured in kilocalories, from 25% (baseline) to 36% (±2%). The transition towards a sustainable food system that enhances the adoption of healthy diets globally is an urgent challenge. A study shows how the EAT-Lancet diet requirement could be met through sustainable agricultural strategies reducing land and water constraints.","PeriodicalId":19056,"journal":{"name":"Nature Sustainability","volume":"7 12","pages":"1651-1661"},"PeriodicalIF":25.7,"publicationDate":"2024-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142845179","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0