Amino-functionalized ionic liquid biphasic solvents present excellent absorption capacity, regeneration ability, and energy consumption savings, which make them a possible candidate for CO₂ capture. The kinetics and regeneration heat duty of the [TETAH][Lys]-ethanol-water system capturing CO₂ were investigated in this work. The mass transfer and kinetic parameters, including the overall reaction rate constant (kₒᵥ), the reaction rate constant (k₂), and the enhancement factor (E), were assessed at diverse concentrations and temperatures. At 303.15 K, the k₂ of CO₂ capture into the [TETAH][Lys]-ethanol-water solution was 58,907.30 m³ kmol⁻¹ s⁻¹. The Arrhenius equation was introduced to evaluate the relations between k₂ and the reaction temperature, which can be presented as [Formula: see text] The regeneration heat duty of the novel biphasic solvent was 35.5 and 62.39% lower than those of [TETAH][Lys]-water and the benchmark monoethanolamine solution, respectively. An efficient absorption performance and lower energy requirement indicate the great potential for this application.

Phytoremediation is considered one of the well-established and sustainable techniques for the removal of heavy metals and metalloids from contaminated sites. The metal extraction ability of the plants can be enhanced by using suitable organic materials in combination with metal-tolerant plants. This experiment was carried out to investigate the phytoextraction potential of Mentha piperita L. for nickel (Ni) with and without citric acid (CA) amendment in hydroponic experiment. The experiment was performed in controlled glass containers with continuous aeration in complete randomized design (CRD). Juvenile M. piperita plants were treated with different concentrations of Ni (100, 250, and 500 μM) alone and/or combined with CA (5 mM). After harvesting the plants, the morpho-physiological and biochemical attributes as well as Ni concentrations in different tissues of M. piperita plants were measured. Results revealed that Ni stress significantly decreased the plant agronomic traits, photosynthesis in comparison to control. Nickel stress enhanced the antioxidant enzymes activities and caused the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in M. piperita. The CA treatment under Ni stress significantly improved the plant morpho-physiological and biochemical characteristics when compared with Ni treatments alone. The results demonstrated that CA enhanced the Ni concentrations in roots, stems, and leaves up to 138.2%, 54.2%, and 38%, respectively, compared to Ni-only-treated plants. The improvement in plant growth with CA under Ni stress indicated that CA is beneficial for Ni phytoextraction by using tolerant plant species. Graphical abstract

This study describes the role of zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) in alleviating arsenic (As) stress in rice (Oryza sativa) germination and early seedling growth. Seeds of rice were primed with different concentrations (10, 20, 50, 100, and 200 mg L⁻¹) of ZnO NPs and As (0, and 2 mg L⁻¹) for 12 days in petri dishes. Two milligrams per liter of As treatment represented a stress condition, which was evidenced by germination rate, seedling length, seedling dry weight, chlorophyll, superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), and malondialdehyde (MDA) content of rice shoot. ZnO NPs amendment (10–100 mg L⁻¹) increased the germination rate (2.3–8.9%), shoot weight (18.2–42.4%), root weight (5.2–23.9%), and chlorophyll content (3.5–40.1%), while elevated the SOD (2.2–22.8%) and CAT (7.2–60.7%) activities and reduced the MDA content (17.5–30.8%). As concentrations were significantly decreased by 8.4–72.3% and 10.2–56.6%, respectively, in rice roots and shoots with ZnO NPs amendment (10–200 mg L⁻¹) by the As adsorption of ZnO NPs and promoted biomass of rice. All the amendments improved the Zn concentrations in rice shoots and roots. Overall, ZnO NPs provide effective resistance to arsenic toxicity by increasing germination, biomass, and nutrients of Zn and decreasing As uptake in rice.

Following the global alertness and consciousness over the increasing warming and heating on the ground of climate change, over 200 countries including Nigeria have committed themselves in reducing this global phenomenon. Nigeria being among the countries placed with individual country’s task and also known as a one-economy operating county because of its oil and gas gifting is subject to investigation of its efforts and result in decarburization of its economy and environment. The oil and gas sector of Nigeria has been identified as the major sector where the heavy utilization of energy is centered on through mining and exploration activities of these foreign companies who have investments and stakes in the main stream sector. This is the major reason of adopting FDI as a major variable to test the performance of the environmental condition of the country. To effectively carry this research, the authors, adopt, cointegration test and the linear ARDL test to unveil the true picture of the foreign investors impact on carbon emission reduction. Among the findings is the positive but not significant interaction between economic growth and carbon emission which infers the capability of the economic operation to initiate the degradation in the environment via pollutant emission. Energy use depicts inducement to carbon emission with positive association with carbon emission. FDI established both negative and positive relationship with carbon emission at initial stage and lag 1 respectively. All the variables point towards carbon emission increase in the country which call for serious attention towards decarburization of the country to fall in line with the agreed policy of Paris formation.

Understanding how temperature alone affects biomarkers commonly used in ecotoxicology studies and biomonitoring programs is important to obtain a more real response in field studies, especially in freshwater. Thus, we analyzed the behavioral responses, the lethality, and the biochemical biomarkers in the freshwater crustacean Aegla longirostri at different water temperatures. Animals were exposed under laboratory conditions, to 18 °C, 21 °C, 24 °C, and 26 °C for 48 h. There were significant changes in biochemical parameters in different tissues (hepatopancreas, gills, and muscle) and in the behavioral tests in A. longirostri. Hepatopancreas was especially affected by the elevation of temperature, as showed by the high levels of carbonyl proteins. The activity of acetylcholinesterase increased in a temperature-dependent manner in muscle. Glutathione S-transferase activity decreased with the elevation of temperature in all tissues sampled. The results obtained in this study indicate that when assessing the health of polluted limnic ecosystems through the use of organisms in situ, the intrinsic effect of abiotic factors, such as temperature, on biomarkers must be considered.

Deep-water column micronekton play a key role in oceanic food webs and represent an important trophic link between deep- and shallow-water ecosystems. Thus, the potential impacts of sub-surface hydrocarbon plumes on these organisms are critical to developing a more complete understanding of ocean-wide effects resulting from deep-sea oil spills. This work was designed to advance the understanding of hydrocarbon toxicity in several ecologically important deep-sea micronekton species using controlled laboratory exposures aimed at determining lethal threshold exposure levels. The current study confirmed the results previously determined for five deep-sea micronekton by measuring lethal threshold levels for phenanthrene between 81.2 and 277.5 μg/L. These results were used to calibrate the target lipid model and to calculate a critical target lipid body burden for each species. In addition, an oil solubility model was used to predict the acute toxicity of MC252 crude oil to vertically migrating crustaceans, Janicella spinacauda and Euphausiidae spp., and to compare the predictions with results of a 48-h constant exposure toxicity test with passive-dosing. Results confirmed that the tested deep-sea micronekton appear more sensitive than many other organisms when exposed to dissolved oil, but baseline stress complicated interpretation of results.

Phenol degradation was studied in two different agitation systems in a batc h reactor (mechanical agitation and orbital agitation) and the support of the most efficient system was used for fixed bed bioreactor studies. The support used was coconut shell charcoal. The results showed that the mechanical agitation bioreactor was more effective in phenol removal, due to the amount of biomass adhered to the support (8.56 mg gₛᵤₚₚₒᵣₜ⁻¹), running at approximately 100% of the phenol biodegradation in 300 min. The toxicity analysis of the waters was moderate, because the EC₅₀,₄₈ₕ values in the analyzed samples are higher than 50%. Within the experimental data obtained from the batch system, it was possible to find the parameters of the kinetic model of Michaelis-Menten, which was used to simulate the bioreactor in a fixed bed. A mathematical model of a one-equation, which considers the effects of dispersion, convection, and reaction in the liquid phase, and diffusion and reaction inside the biofilm was used and the results obtained through numerical simulation were compared with the experimental results of the bioreactor in a fixed bed, and new operational conditions in the bed were simulated with good accuracy.

This paper investigates the elasticity of substitution between four inputs—capital, labor, energy, and material—with the translog cost approach for a wide range of industries in Germany by incorporating the slow adjustment process in factor substitution. To this end, we take advantage of EU KLEMS database covering a wide range of industries and consider two models. The first is the static model, in which instantaneous and complete substitution adjustments are assumed. The other model, referred to as dynamic, takes into account the slow adjustment process and applies this to the cost share equations which are estimated using Zellner’s seemingly unrelated regression. The empirical results suggest that (i) the dynamic models have greater explanatory power than the static models; (ii) the production process at the national or industry level in Germany is mainly characterized by a complementarity or weak substitutability between energy and other inputs, which limits German government’s ability to reduce energy use through factor substitution; (iii) among four factor prices, energy demand seems to be more sensitive to changes in the price of material, followed by labor. Hence, an increase in energy prices can be efficient to some extent in order to reduce energy use; (iv) there is a substantial industry heterogeneity in Germany in terms of both input substitution and its adjustment process. Therefore, strategies to mitigate CO₂ emissions through input substitution channel should be designed at the industry level based on the industry-specific needs and peculiarities. It is because well-designed comprehensive policies that consider different structures of industries could help to achieve a carbon-neutral economy for Germany.

Engineered sulfate injection has been introduced as an effective technology to enhance the remediation of soil and groundwater contaminated by petroleum hydrocarbons. While some studies indicate that sulfate injection is a promising method for the treatment of hydrocarbon-contaminated subsurface systems, its application in the brackish soil environments is unknown. In this study, we explored related geochemical indicators along with soil adsorption and dissolved phase concentrations to provide an improved understanding of the hydrocarbon-contaminated subsurface responses to the sulfate injection in brackish environments. A series of flow-through experiments representing in situ groundwater anaerobic bioremediation were conducted and two sulfate injection episodes were applied to examine the degradation of dissolved naphthalene under low salinity and brackish conditions. As opposed to the substantial body of previous studies that salinity restricts biodegradation, the results from this study showed that naphthalene anaerobic degradation was more stable once the salinity was as high as that at the sampling location in the coastal brackish environment. While increasing naphthalene concentration from 4 to 12 mg L⁻¹ did not limit biodegradation efficiency under brackish condition similar to the sampling location, it adversely restricted the developed reducing conditions and biodegradation process under low salinity conditions. This highlights the adaption of the microbial communities within the soil to the brackish environment at the sampling location suggesting that changing the salinity during engineered sulfate application can make the remediation process more susceptible against the environmental stresses and substrate toxicity. The results of this study provide insight into the engineered sulfate application as a remediation strategy for potential removal of dissolved naphthalene from the contaminated brackish groundwater.

Understanding the behavior and fate of clay colloids in water-saturated porous media is critical to assess its environmental impact and potential risk since clay is commonly a carrier of many contaminants. Column experiments with four-packing configurations were designed to understand the coupled effects of column structural heterogeneity and the flow velocity on the transport and fate of kaolinite colloids in the saturated porous media. The results showed that the structural heterogeneity could have facilitated the transport of kaolinite colloids in saturated porous media. For the columns with strong heterogeneity, the preferential flow paths led to an early breakthrough of kaolinite. Only few kaolinite colloids were released with slow flow rate; however, the released peak concentration and release percentage of kaolinite colloids had further increased with the high flow velocity. In the layered column, there was significant kaolinite’s retention at the interface where water passed from fine to coarse quartz sand. All results indicated that both flow rates and media characteristics played an important role in controlling kaolinite’s fate and transport in porous media. A thorough understanding of these processes had an important significance for pollution control in subsurface natural environment where heterogeneous soil and variation in flow pattern are usually common.