Giacomo Grassi, Glen P. Peters, Josep G. Canadell, Alessandro Cescatti, Sandro Federici, Matthew J. Gidden, Nancy Harris, Martin Herold, Thelma Krug, Michael O’Sullivan, Julia Pongratz, María J. Sanz, Clemens Schwingshackl, Detlef van Vuuren
{"title":"Improving land-use emission estimates under the Paris Agreement","authors":"Giacomo Grassi, Glen P. Peters, Josep G. Canadell, Alessandro Cescatti, Sandro Federici, Matthew J. Gidden, Nancy Harris, Martin Herold, Thelma Krug, Michael O’Sullivan, Julia Pongratz, María J. Sanz, Clemens Schwingshackl, Detlef van Vuuren","doi":"10.1038/s41893-025-01565-1","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41893-025-01565-1","url":null,"abstract":"Climate science and national emissions reporting communities have historically used different definitions and methods for anthropogenic land-based carbon removals. As the mitigation agenda accelerates, reconciling these differences for comparability and moving towards integration is crucial for enhancing confidence in land-use emission estimates.","PeriodicalId":19056,"journal":{"name":"Nature Sustainability","volume":"8 6","pages":"579-581"},"PeriodicalIF":27.1,"publicationDate":"2025-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145122685","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}
{"title":"Turning sun and seawater into disinfectant","authors":"Yaovi Holade, Mikhael Bechelany","doi":"10.1038/s41893-025-01564-2","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41893-025-01564-2","url":null,"abstract":"Hypochlorite is in wide industrial and domestic use as disinfectant, but its manufacture, involving the processing and transport of hazardous chemicals, is problematic. Now a safer, more sustainable alternative, powered by sunlight and seawater, has been developed.","PeriodicalId":19056,"journal":{"name":"Nature Sustainability","volume":"8 6","pages":"586-587"},"PeriodicalIF":27.1,"publicationDate":"2025-05-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145122682","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}
Yanjing Wang, Guobin Wen, Zhijuan Liu, Ta Thi Thuy Nga, Chung-Li Dong, Jie You, Chao Xie, Shiqian Du, Fei Zhang, Qie Liu, Jianrong Wei, Yu Cao, Xinda Peng, Yahong Yuan, Yanyong Wang, Shuangyin Wang
{"title":"Bipolar electrochemical uranium extraction from seawater with ultra-low cell voltage","authors":"Yanjing Wang, Guobin Wen, Zhijuan Liu, Ta Thi Thuy Nga, Chung-Li Dong, Jie You, Chao Xie, Shiqian Du, Fei Zhang, Qie Liu, Jianrong Wei, Yu Cao, Xinda Peng, Yahong Yuan, Yanyong Wang, Shuangyin Wang","doi":"10.1038/s41893-025-01567-z","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41893-025-01567-z","url":null,"abstract":"Efficient uranium extraction from seawater has the potential to secure an abundant and reliable supply of nuclear fuel, providing affordable energy with minimized carbon emissions. Among the many extraction methods, the electrochemical route has emerged as a promising choice owing to its fast kinetics and materials regeneration. The major challenges facing this technology, however, lie in its high energy consumption, low extraction efficiency and poor selectivity. Here we show a bipolar electrochemical uranium extraction (EUE) system that combines cathodic direct electroreduction of uranium species and electrochemistry-assisted indirect uranium reduction at the anode. The EUE device operates at an ultra-low voltage of merely 0.6 V, exhibiting an efficiency of ~100% for sources with a wide range of uranium concentrations (1–100 ppm). This bipolar EUE system in natural seawater displays excellent uranium selectivity (above 85.3%), long-term stability (45 cycles), low energy consumption (1,944 kWh kg−1 U) and cost advantage (US$83.2 kg−1 U). This work opens an avenue to the electrochemical system design for sustainable recycling of different waste resources. Seawater is the most abundant source of uranium. This work shows a bipolar electrochemical mining process from seawater at ultra-low voltages, ensuring maximized extraction efficiency and minimized energy consumption.","PeriodicalId":19056,"journal":{"name":"Nature Sustainability","volume":"8 6","pages":"682-691"},"PeriodicalIF":27.1,"publicationDate":"2025-05-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145122701","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}
Gengwu Zhang, Ikjin Kim, Lukman O. Alimi, Deepak Ramdas Boraste, Rahul Dev Mukhopadhyay, Weibin Lin, Aiping Chen, Vasilios G. Samaras, Abdul-Hamid Emwas, Basem A. Moosa, Kimoon Kim, Niveen M. Khashab
{"title":"Selective and sustainable separation of hydrocarbons from crude oil via molecular sieve","authors":"Gengwu Zhang, Ikjin Kim, Lukman O. Alimi, Deepak Ramdas Boraste, Rahul Dev Mukhopadhyay, Weibin Lin, Aiping Chen, Vasilios G. Samaras, Abdul-Hamid Emwas, Basem A. Moosa, Kimoon Kim, Niveen M. Khashab","doi":"10.1038/s41893-025-01563-3","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41893-025-01563-3","url":null,"abstract":"The sustainable separation of hydrocarbons from crude oil is critical for reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions in the chemical industry. Current methods are energy intensive and do not allow for isolation of specific hydrocarbons due to overlapping physicochemical properties and molecular complexities in crude oil. Here we introduce an energy-efficient molecular sieving strategy using cucurbit[7]uril (CB[7]) aqueous solution to directly extract cyclohexane (CH) from crude oil. CB[7] enables efficient CH separation under ambient and harsh conditions through shape- and size-selective binding with an ultrahigh affinity (2.5 × 109 M−1). Industrial validation shows >99% CH purity from azeotropic benzene mixtures and crude distillates and achieves 57.4–82.4% energy savings compared with current industrial methods. By demonstrating the scalability and robustness of CB[7]-based separations, this work highlights the potential of molecular sieves for sustainable, cost-effective hydrocarbon recovery from crude oil, paving the way for large-scale, sustainable hydrocarbon purification. Crude oil is a mixture of different hydrocarbons, and their separation remains challenging. Here this work shows a molecular sieve that allows for direct, selective and sustainable isolation of valuable components.","PeriodicalId":19056,"journal":{"name":"Nature Sustainability","volume":"8 7","pages":"784-792"},"PeriodicalIF":27.1,"publicationDate":"2025-05-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145122910","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}
{"title":"Rubber that lasts longer","authors":"Stephen L. Craig, Michael Rubinstein","doi":"10.1038/s41893-025-01549-1","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41893-025-01549-1","url":null,"abstract":"Natural rubber has many uses in a variety of industries, enabled by ‘crosslinking’ between its tangled polymers, which creates elasticity. But rubber can crack and suffer fatigue. It is now shown that reducing the crosslink density in highly entangled natural rubber increases its crack resistance and prolongs its useful life.","PeriodicalId":19056,"journal":{"name":"Nature Sustainability","volume":"8 6","pages":"588-589"},"PeriodicalIF":27.1,"publicationDate":"2025-05-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145122688","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}
Guodong Nian, Zheqi Chen, Xianyang Bao, Matthew Wei Ming Tan, Yakov Kutsovsky, Zhigang Suo
{"title":"Natural rubber with high resistance to crack growth","authors":"Guodong Nian, Zheqi Chen, Xianyang Bao, Matthew Wei Ming Tan, Yakov Kutsovsky, Zhigang Suo","doi":"10.1038/s41893-025-01559-z","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41893-025-01559-z","url":null,"abstract":"Natural rubber, with annual production of 15 million tonnes, is the most used bio-elastomer. Improving its resistance to crack growth is highly desired, to prolong its service life for many applications and eventually improve its sustainability. Here we markedly amplify the resistance to crack growth in natural rubber by forming a tanglemer, a polymer network in which entanglements greatly outnumber crosslinks. Specifically, we cast natural rubber latex without high-intensity processing that cuts long polymers. The long polymers densely entangle by thermal motion and are then sparsely crosslinked. At a crack tip, long polymer strands between neighbouring crosslinks deconcentrate stress, extend strain-induced crystallization over a large region and enhance crystallinity. For example, when the ratio of crosslinks to repeat units reduces from 10−2 to 10−3, the network amplifies fatigue threshold from ~50 J m−2 to ~200 J m−2, and toughness from ~104 J m−2 to over 105 J m−2. Overall, this work provides a viable strategy to improve the practical applicability of natural rubber, contributing to the development of sustainable polymers. Natural rubber is a widely used biopolymer and further improving its resistance to crack growth will extend its service life. Here the authors show a strategy to amplify the resistance to crack growth in natural rubber by forming a tanglemer.","PeriodicalId":19056,"journal":{"name":"Nature Sustainability","volume":"8 6","pages":"692-701"},"PeriodicalIF":27.1,"publicationDate":"2025-05-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145122702","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}
Hao Cai, Jiaqi Xuan, Xiaoxi Wang, Changzheng Yuan, Benjamin Leon Bodirsky, Miodrag Stevanović, Jan Philipp Dietrich, Alexander Popp, Hermann Lotze-Campen
{"title":"The multiple benefits of Chinese dietary transformation","authors":"Hao Cai, Jiaqi Xuan, Xiaoxi Wang, Changzheng Yuan, Benjamin Leon Bodirsky, Miodrag Stevanović, Jan Philipp Dietrich, Alexander Popp, Hermann Lotze-Campen","doi":"10.1038/s41893-025-01560-6","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41893-025-01560-6","url":null,"abstract":"The transition to more sustainable diets is critical to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and meet the Paris Agreement commitments. In China, this transition is particularly urgent due to the double burden of malnutrition and environmental degradation. In this study, we explored the potential of alternative diets in China to enhance public health, ensure food affordability and reduce adverse environmental impacts. We assessed these patterns through a multi-objective diet optimization model combined with an agro-economic modelling framework that captures key socio-economic and biophysical dynamics in China. The proposed healthy, affordable and low-environmental-impact diets substantially improve dietary quality and are projected to reduce food expenditures by 20–28% (US$128–186 capita−1 in power purchasing parities of 2005) by 2050. These diets also bring environmental benefits, including a 3–11% (4–13 Mha) expansion of non-forest natural vegetation area and modest biodiversity gains by 2050, a 9–40% (3–13 Gt CO2-equivalent) reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and a 5–12% (347–772 km3) decrease in freshwater withdrawals between 2020 and 2050. Our findings underscore the potential to achieve multiple co-benefits through long-term and target-oriented dietary transformations, while also balancing the transformation feasibility with achievable gains. The transition to sustainable diets is challenging for countries that face malnutrition and limited resources. Now a study explores how various dietary transformations in China can improve public health, make food affordable and reduce environmental impacts, while evaluating the feasibility of the diet changes.","PeriodicalId":19056,"journal":{"name":"Nature Sustainability","volume":"8 6","pages":"606-618"},"PeriodicalIF":27.1,"publicationDate":"2025-05-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145122684","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}
David E. Abraham, Robert Yang, Jyotirmoy Mandal, Mackensie Yore, Xin Huang, V. Kelly Turner, Walker Wells, Kirsten Schwarz, David P. Eisenman, Aaswath P. Raman
{"title":"Efficient outdoor thermal comfort via radiant cooling and infrared-reflective walls","authors":"David E. Abraham, Robert Yang, Jyotirmoy Mandal, Mackensie Yore, Xin Huang, V. Kelly Turner, Walker Wells, Kirsten Schwarz, David P. Eisenman, Aaswath P. Raman","doi":"10.1038/s41893-025-01558-0","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41893-025-01558-0","url":null,"abstract":"As climate change accelerates, extreme heat events will intensify, threatening vulnerable populations experiencing dangerous heat outdoors. Active radiant cooling has recently emerged as a promising strategy for outdoor thermal comfort, at it offers cooling at a distance without the inefficiency of conditioning unconfined air. However, for radiant cooling structures to be effective, the overwhelming majority of their internal surfaces must be actively cooled, typically with visibly opaque panels, raising practicality and safety concerns. Here, we demonstrate that thermal comfort can be achieved in an outdoor cooling structure that lightly uses radiant cooling and amplifies this cooling effect using visibly transparent, infrared-reflective surfaces. This approach enables visibly open cooling structures that will be accepted by a wide range of communities. We first derive an analytical model that relates the mean radiant temperature to the proportion of cold and reflective surfaces in a structure. We then experimentally demonstrate such a structure, with human subject testing revealing a substantial enhancement in thermal comfort as experienced by occupants. Our results highlight how next-generation radiant cooling structures can use fewer actively cooled surfaces without compromising on cooling effectiveness. This is a practical approach to enabling thermal comfort outdoors in extreme heat conditions. Active radiant cooling is an emerging technology that consumes less energy than traditional air conditioning. This work demonstrates an outdoor radiant cooling structure incorporating infrared-reflective surfaces that delivers enhanced thermal comfort.","PeriodicalId":19056,"journal":{"name":"Nature Sustainability","volume":"8 6","pages":"642-650"},"PeriodicalIF":27.1,"publicationDate":"2025-05-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145122742","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}
Hanwen An, Menglu Li, Qingsong Liu, Yajie Song, Biao Deng, Xingjiang Liu, Jiajun Wang
{"title":"Hybrid electrolyte enables solid-state sodium batteries sustaining 50,000 cycles","authors":"Hanwen An, Menglu Li, Qingsong Liu, Yajie Song, Biao Deng, Xingjiang Liu, Jiajun Wang","doi":"10.1038/s41893-025-01544-6","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41893-025-01544-6","url":null,"abstract":"Solid-state sodium (Na) batteries open the opportunity for more sustainable energy storage due to their safety, low cost and high energy density. Inorganic solid electrolytes show notable advantages for such technologies but suffer from poor interfacial compatibility, rendering hybrid solid–liquid electrolytes an alternative. Here we show that the interfacial failure in the hybrid electrolyte system (Na3Zr2Si2PO12 (NZSP) and 1 M NaClO4 in propylene carbonate/ethylene carbonate/fluoroethylene carbonate) is closely associated with Na vacancies on the surface of NZSP. Asymmetric kinetics of solid and liquid electrolytes lead to the formation of Na vacancies and an unstable environment in the Helmholtz layer, while the organic molecules (propylene carbonate) are energetically favourable towards undesirable dehydrogenation. To eliminate the Na vacancies layer, we designed an ion-anchoring interlayer that serves to minimize the interfacial polarization. The unique O–Na coordination between the interfacial layer and NSZP confers stability to the solid–liquid interface. As demonstrated, the sodium battery with the modified hybrid electrolyte sustains 50,000 cycles with capacity retention of 86.3%. Our work provides a new path for the design of solid-state Na batteries, highlighting their potential for widespread practical applications. Solid-state sodium batteries represent more sustainable options as they combine resource abundance with safety. This work advances their performance, particularly fast cycling lifespan, to an unprecedented level utilizing a hybrid electrolyte.","PeriodicalId":19056,"journal":{"name":"Nature Sustainability","volume":"8 6","pages":"661-671"},"PeriodicalIF":27.1,"publicationDate":"2025-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145122681","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}