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Two-pass reverse osmosis (RO) process is prevailing in seawater desalination, but each process must consume considerable amounts of chemicals to secure product water quality. Caustic soda is used to raise the pH of the first-pass RO permeate (also the second-pass RO feed) to ensure adequate removal of boron in the subsequent second-pass RO, while antiscalants and disinfectants such as hypochlorite are added in the feed seawater for scaling and biofouling control of the first-pass RO membranes. Here, we report for the first time a flow-through electrochemically assisted reverse osmosis (FT-EARO) module system used in the first-pass RO, aiming to dramatically reduce or even eliminate chemical usage for the current RO desalination. This novel system integrated an electroconductive permeate carrier as cathode and an electroconductive feed spacer as anode on each side of the first-pass RO membrane. Upon applying an extremely low-energy (< 0.005 kWh/m3) electrical field, the FT-EARO module could (1) produce a permeate with pH >10 with no alkali dosage, ensuring sufficient boron removal in the second-pass RO, and (2) generate protons and low-concentration free chlorine near the membrane surface, potentially discouraging membrane scaling and biofouling while maintaining satisfactory desalination performance. The current study further elucidated the high scalability of this novel electrified high-pressure RO module design. The low-chemical manner of FT-EARO presents an attractive practical option towards green and sustainable seawater desalination.

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Chemical pretreatment of lignocellulosic biomass (LCB) is essential for effective biological conversion in subsequent steps to produce biofuels or biochemicals. For effective pretreatment, high lignin content and its recalcitrant nature of LCB are major factors influencing bioconversion, especially lignin is known to be effectively solubilized by alkaline, organic, and deep eutectic solvents, ionic liquids, while hemicellulose is effectively dissolved by various acid catalysts and organic solvents. Depending on the pretreatment method/catalyst used, different pretreatment process scheme should be applied with different amounts of catalyst and water inputs to achieve a satisfactory effect. In addition, the amount of processing water required in the following processes such as washing, catalyst recovery, and conditioning after pretreatment is critical factor for scale-up (commercialization). In this review, the amount of catalyst and/or water used, and the effect of pretreatment, properties of the products, and recovery of liquid are also discussed.

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Abstract: Cross-linkers have great importance in textile due to the widespread utilization of cellulosic fibers for clothing. Unfortunately, the acute toxicity of formaldehyde-based resins and the poor performance of non-formaldehyde resins still keep the research door open for scientists in this area. Herein, we demonstrated copper nanoparticles induced trimesic acid grafted cellulose as a sustainable solution for multifunctional easy-care clothing. Our treated fabric presents crease recovery angle value of 248° comparable to that of most promising citric acid-based cross-linkers at the chemical concentration of trimesic acid as low as 2% with a sweeping improvement of around 30% in strength retention, not reported earlier. The relatively low fabric stiffness, without any yellowing, is contributing to the comfort and aesthetic demand while nanoparticles induction promoting utmost antimicrobial need. For the first time, the superiority of the development was validated by interlacing the fabric/finish traits with sustainability building blocks that provide the step forward for rapid industrialization. Furthermore, environmental, health, and safety mapping comparison provides a better understanding of the intensity of hazards that different finishing crosslinkers pose on the environment and public health. With improved performance and superior sustainability, such fabric can act as a preferable alternative to the multifunctional easy-care fabric market. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10570-021-04251-5.

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The international cooperation project "electricity-driven low energy and chemical input technology for accelerated bioremediation" (abridged as "ELECTRA") is jointly supported by National Nature Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and European Commission (EC). The ELECTRA consortium consists of 5 research institutions and universities from China and 17 European research institutions and universities, as well as high-tech companies of EC countries. ELECTRA focuses on researches of biodegradation of emerging organic compounds (EOCs) and novel environmental biotechnologies of low-energy and low-chemical inputs. The project has been successfully operated for 2 years, and has made important progresses in obtaining EOCs-degrading microbes, developing weak-electricity-accelerated bioremediation, and 3D-printing techniques for microbial consortium. The ELECTRA has promoted collaborations among the Chinese and European scientists. In the future, ELECTRA will overcome the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and fulfill the scientific objectives through strengthening the international collaboration.

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The international cooperation project "electricity-driven low energy and chemical input technology for accelerated bioremediation" (abridged as "ELECTRA") is jointly supported by National Nature Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and European Commission (EC). The ELECTRA consortium consists of 5 research institutions and universities from China and 17 European research institutions and universities, as well as high-tech companies of EC countries. ELECTRA focuses on researches of biodegradation of emerging organic compounds (EOCs) and novel environmental biotechnologies of low-energy and low-chemical inputs. The project has been successfully operated for 2 years, and has made important progresses in obtaining EOCs-degrading microbes, developing weak-electricity-accelerated bioremediation, and 3D-printing techniques for microbial consortium. The ELECTRA has promoted collaborations among the Chinese and European scientists. In the future, ELECTRA will overcome the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and fulfill the scientific objectives through strengthening the international collaboration.

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A proximity histogram or proxigram is the prevailing technique of calculating 3D composition profiles of a second phase in atom probe tomography. The second phase in the reconstruction is delineated by creating an isoconcentration surface, i.e. the precipitate-matrix interface. The 3D composition profile is then calculated with respect to this user-defined isoconcentration surface. Hence, the selection of the correct isoconcentration surface is critical. In general, the preliminary selection of an isoconcentration value is guided by the visual observation of a chemically partitioned second phase. However, in low-chemical -partitioning systems, such a visual guide is absent. The lack of a priori composition information of the precipitate phase may further confound the issue. This paper presents a methodology of selecting an appropriate elemental species and subsequently obtaining an isoconcentration value to create an accurate isoconcentration surface that will act as the precipitate-matrix interface. We use the H-phase precipitate in the Ni-Ti-Hf shape memory alloy as our case study to illustrate the procedure.