The United Nation Sustainable Development Goals emphasized to meet the global food security challenges by mechanized farming; access of clean water challenges by renewable freshwater withdrawals; clean energy issues determined by clean fuel and cleaner technologies; and combat climate change by limiting anthropogenic emissions of carbon, fossil fuel, and Greenhouse Gas emissions in the air. This study examined the aforementioned United Nation Sustainable Development Goals in the context of Pakistan by using a time series data from 1970 to 2016. The study employed Tapio’s elasticity of decoupling state to analyze the relationship between water-energy-food resources and carbon-fossil-greenhouse gas emissions in a given country context. The results of Tapio elasticity found that carbon-fossil-greenhouse gas emissions’ contamination in water-energy-food’s resources are quite visible that exhibit weak decoupling state, expensive negative decoupling state, and strong decoupling state in the different decade’s data, which substantiate the ecological cost in water-energy-food’s resources. The results emphasized the need to adopt different sustainable instruments in a way to limit carbon-fossil-greenhouse gas emissions in water-energy-food resources through cleaner production technologies, renewable energy mix, environmental certification, anti-dumping tariff duty, strict environmental regulations, etc. These instruments would be helpful to achieve environmental sustainability agenda for mutual exclusive global gains.

Light-emitting diode (LED) technology is an emerging nonthermal food processing technique that utilizes light energy with wavelengths ranging from 200 to 780 nm. Inactivation of bacteria, viruses, and fungi in water by LED treatment has been studied extensively. LED technology has also shown antimicrobial efficacy in food systems. This review provides an overview of recent studies of LED decontamination of water and food. LEDs produce an antibacterial effect by photodynamic inactivation due to photosensitization of light absorbing compounds in the presence of oxygen and DNA damage; however, such inactivation is dependent on the wavelength of light energy used. Commercial applications of LED treatment include air ventilation systems in office spaces, curing, medical applications, water treatment, and algaculture. As low penetration depth and high-intensity usage can challenge optimal LED treatment, optimization studies are required to select the right light wavelength for the application and to standardize measurements of light energy dosage.

The present review describes the processes occurring in the degradation of pesticides in soil and persues their entry to groundwater, air and food plants. To avoid groundwater pollution the adsorption and mineralization of pesticides in soil must be at least 99,98% of the soil-reaching substances. At lower retention rates groundwater protection is achieved only by minimizing the amount of application or by enlarging the intervals between the use of the same chemical ingredients

The chemistry, antimicrobial efficacy and energy consumption of plasma-activated water (PAW) was optimized by altering the discharge frequency, ground-electrode configuration, gas flow rate and initial water conductivity for two reactor configurations, i.e., air pin-to-liquid discharge and air plasma-bubble discharge in water. The ratio of NO₂⁻ and NO₃⁻ formation was altered to optimise the antimicrobial effects of PAW, tested against two Gram-negative bacteria. An initial solution conductivity of 0.2 S·m⁻¹ and 2000-Hz discharge frequency with the ground electrode positioned inside the pin reactor showed the highest antimicrobial effect resulting in a 3.99 ± 0.13-log₁₀ reduction within 300 s against Escherichia coli and 5.90 ± 0.24-log₁₀ reduction within 240 s for Salmonella Typhimurium. An excellent energy efficiency of reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (RONS) generation of 10.1 ± 0.1 g·kW⁻¹·h⁻¹ was achieved.Plasma-activated water (PAW) is deemed as an eco-friendly alternative to chemical disinfection because its bactericidal activity is temporary. Optimizing the design and operation of PAW reactors to achieve high inactivation rates of more than 5-log₁₀ reductions, as demonstrated in this work, will support the industrial application of this technology and the scaleup at industrial level.

Continued rise in global human population, per capita consumption, urbanization and migration towards coastal cities present challenges in fulfilling the energy, water and food demands of coastal communities in sustainable manner. In this regard, as a solution to the problem, a new multigeneration system is proposed to address some of the most common and vital needs of such communities. The system developed is based on principles of sustainability and decentralisation and is driven by renewable energy sources including sun and biomass. It provides electricity, fresh water, hot water for domestic use, HVAC for space air-conditioning and food storage, in addition to hot air for food drying. In the proposed hybrid system, biomass energy is integrated with solar energy in a complimentary manner as a means to maximise outputs and enhance system resilience against weather conditions and day/night cycles. Designing for resilience enables a type of operation that fulfils parallel demands in a continuous stable and flexible operation which can be optimised depending on the requirements. The main sub-systems used in the proposed multigeneration system consist of a Biomass combustor, Concentrated Solar Power (CSP), a Rankine Cycle, a desalination unit and an Absorption Cooling System (ACS). A comprehensive integrated thermodynamic model of the entire system is developed by application of energy, mass, entropy and exergy balance equations. Moreover, effects of various inputs and environmental variables on the outputs and performance has also been studied. Results reveal that the proposed system is capable of fulfilling some of the coastal community’s essential requirements in an efficient and ecologically benign manner. The energy and exergy efficiencies of the proposed system are 55% and 18%, respectively. The outputs of the system include 1687 m³/day of produced fresh water, ~4 MW of cooling, ~13 MW of electricity, ~73 kg/s of hot air for food drying, and ~41 kg/s of hot water for domestic use. Furthermore, the highest amount of exergy destruction is observed in biomass combustion unit and the solar PTCs.

Engineered water nanostructures (EWNS) synthesized utilizing electrospray and ionization of water, have been, recently, shown to be an effective, green, antimicrobial platform for surface and air disinfection, where reactive oxygen species (ROS), generated and encapsulated within the particles during synthesis, were found to be the main inactivation mechanism. Herein, the antimicrobial potency of the EWNS was further enhanced by integrating electrolysis, electrospray and ionization of de-ionized water in the EWNS synthesis process. Detailed physicochemical characterization of these enhanced EWNS (eEWNS) was performed using state-of-the-art analytical methods and has shown that, while both size and charge remain similar to the EWNS (mean diameter of 13 nm and charge of 13 electrons), they possess a three times higher ROS content. The increase of the ROS content as a result of the addition of the electrolysis step before electrospray and ionization led to an increased antimicrobial ability as verified by E. coli inactivation studies using stainless steel coupons. It was shown that a 45-min exposure to eEWNS resulted in a 4-log reduction as opposed to a 1.9-log reduction when exposed to EWNS. In addition, the eEWNS were assessed for their potency to inactivate natural microbiota (total viable and yeast and mold counts), as well as, inoculated E. coli on the surface of fresh organic blackberries. The results showed a 97% (1.5-log) inactivation of the total viable count, a 99% (2-log) reduction in the yeast and mold count and a 2.5-log reduction of the inoculated E. coli after 45 min of exposure, without any visual changes to the fruit. This enhanced antimicrobial activity further underpins the EWNS platform as an effective, dry and chemical free approach suitable for a variety of food safety applications and could be ideal for delicate fresh produce that cannot withstand the classical, wet disinfection treatments.

Hydrophobic materials extracted from citrus wastes, both peel of mandarin fruits and leaf of mandarin trees were used to treat food-grade Kraft paper. The chemical compounds of the extracts were identified by gas chromatography–mass spectroscopy and infrared spectroscopy, and their antioxidant activities were determined using a free radical scavenger agent (2,2-diphenyl-1-picryl-hydrazyl-hydrate, DPPH). Water vapor permeability, air transmission rate, peroxide value, and microstructure of treated and original papers were also determined. The experimental results showed that: (i) most components of the peel or peel/leaf extracts were terpenes; (ii) free volume existed among cellulose macromolecule chains of the original paper, occupied by a part of extract materials, and another part of the extracts was formed a thin layer on the paper surfaces; and (iii) air and water barrier properties and antioxidant activity of the treated papers were improved, indicating that the extracts were efficient materials for food packaging applications.

These studies examined the effects of incorporating bubbles of air in the water used for cleaning surfaces. Small (<50 μm) or large (millimetre) bubbles were used, and these could aid cleaning by a scrubbing action, energy release or free radical production. Small or large bubbles improved the removal of biofilm from steel surfaces by 1.0 log₁₀ or 1.6 log₁₀, respectively. Biofilm removal from a polypropylene pipe wall was improved by 0.9 log₁₀ by incorporating bubbles into the cleaning water. Further trials showed increased removal of carbohydrate, fat and protein deposits from stainless steel by incorporating bubbles into the water. These results suggest that the use of air bubbles in water could provide small improvements in cleaning or potentially similar contamination removal using less water.

We designed Air-in-Oil-in-Water (A/O/W) emulsions. First, Air-in-Oil foams were fabricated by whipping anhydrous milk fat. The maximum overrun was obtained at 20 °C. The foams contained 30–35 vol% air and were stabilized solely by fat crystals. To refine the bubble size, foams were further sheared in a Couette’s cell. The average bubble size reached a value as small as 6.5 μm at a shear rate of 5250 s−1. The nonaqueous foams were then dispersed in a viscous aqueous phase containing sodium caseinate to obtain A/O/W emulsions. The shear rate was varied from 1000 to 7500 s−1, allowing to obtain Air-in-Oil globules whose average diameter ranged from 15 to 60 μm. To avoid globule creaming, the aqueous phase was gelled by incorporating hydroxyethyl cellulose. Homogeneous emulsions were obtained with fat globules containing around 22 vol% of residual air. The systems were kinetically stable for at least 3 weeks at 4 °C.