Adsorption characteristics and mechanisms of water-soluble polymers (PVP and PEG) on kaolin and montmorillonite minerals

The excessive use and accumulation of water-soluble polymers (WSPs, known as “liquid plastics”) in the environment can pose potential risks to both ecosystems and human health, but the environmental fate of WSPs remains unclear. Here, the adsorption behavior of WSPs with different molecular weight on kaolinite (Kaol) and montmorillonite (Mt)...

Groundwater Vulnerability in a Megacity Under Climate and Economic Changes: A Coupled Sociohydrological Analysis

Groundwater depletion has become increasingly challenging, and many cities worldwide have adopted drastic policies to relieve water stress due to socioeconomic growth. Located on the declining aquifer of the North China Plain, Beijing, for example, has developed plans to limit the size of the city’s population. However, the effect of...

Carbonation and related behaviors of hardened cement pastes under different hydration degrees

This paper develops a kind of molded disc samples to investigate the carbonation and related behaviors of hardened cement pastes under different previous hydration degrees. Weight and length changes of cement pastes over time are monitored during a multistep process including carbonation, drying, rewetting, and redrying. The combination of X...

Unveiling the inequalities in virtual water transfer in China: The environmental and economic perspectives

To alleviate the geographical mismatch between supply and demand of water resources, virtual water trade had attracted extensive attention. Many studies had estimated the virtual water flow and measured the virtual water inequality using Environmental Input-Output (EIO) model. However, EIO model ignores the feedback effect in the trade, which...

Evaluation of the Physicochemical Properties and Antiaging Properties of Bitumen Mastic Modified by Layered Double Hydroxides

Layered double hydroxides (LDHs) can shield polymeric materials from UV light, which allows reducing material aging and erosion damage of bituminous pavement under physical and chemical action. In this study, the physicochemical properties, aging resistance, and erosion resistance to the aqueous solution of LDHs modified bitumen mastic (BM) were...

One-step controllable fabrication of 3D structured self-standing Al₃Ni₂/Ni electrode through molten salt electrolysis for efficient water splitting

Exploring more efficient and low-cost electrocatalysts to replace platinum (Pt) is highly desired to promote the practical hydrogen production through water splitting. Herein, a facile and effective strategy is proposed to fabricate self-standing Al₃Ni₂/Ni electrode with controlled phase composition and surface...

Deterioration of cement mortars with different water cement ratio partially immersed in sulfate

Cement-based materials in sulfate rich areas will suffer from serious corrosion after semi-immersion. To study the degradation of cement mortars with different water cement ratio (w/c) partially exposed to sulfate solution, the mass change were employed to reveal damage progress. Moreover, porosity, erosion products and SO2 4 - content were...

Environomic-Based Social Demand Response in Cyber-Physical-Social Power Systems

According to the Department of Energy, demand response provides an opportunity for end-users to play a significant role in the efficiency, reliability, resilience, and sustainability of a power grid. This is made possible owing to the existence of storage devices and diversity of energy sources at the customer level and the advent of the...

Analytical solutions for excess pore water pressures generated by TBM tunnelling in a semi-confined aquifer

Tunnel-boring machine (TBM) tunnelling through an aquifer will generate excess pore water pressures in the soil around the tunnel face. Accurately predicting the magnitude of the excess pore water pressures is significant because it directly determines the effective face support pressure. In this study, an analytical solution for transient...

Low Temperature Sunlight-Powered Reduction of CO₂ to CO Using a Plasmonic Au/TiO₂ Nanocatalyst

Sunlight-powered reduction of CO₂ to fuels and chemicals is a promising strategy to close the carbon loop and facilitate the energy transition. In this research, we demonstrate that Au nanoparticles supported on TiO₂ are an efficient plasmonic catalyst for the sunlight-powered reverse water-gas shift (rWGS) reaction. A...

Identification and Quantification of Nanoplastics in Surface Water and Groundwater by Pyrolysis Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry

Nanoplastics (NPs) are currently considered an environmental pollutant of concern, but the actual extent of NP pollution in environmental water bodies remains unclear and there is not enough quantitative data to conduct proper risk assessments. In this study, a pretreatment method combining ultrafiltration (UF, 100 kDa) with hydrogen peroxide...

Many-objective optimization with improved shuffled frog leaping algorithm for inter-basin water transfers

Inter-basin water transfers (IBWT) are implemented to re-allocate unevenly distributed water resources. However, many conflicting objectives associated with society, economy, and environment have made the water resources allocation problem in IBWT more complicated than ever before. Thus, there is a continuous need for in-depth research with...

Hollow MoS₃ Nanospheres as Electrode Material for “Water-in-Salt” Li–Ion Batteries

The use of “water-in-salt” electrolyte (WISE) (i. e., a highly concentrated aqueous solution) in rechargeable batteries has received increasing attention due to the significantly expanded electrochemical window compared to the limited voltage of conventional aqueous electrolytes. It enables the use of more positive/negative electrode material...

Spatial variation pattern analysis of hydrologic processes and water quality in three gorges reservoir area

The Three Gorges Project (TGP) has greatly enhanced the heterogeneity of the underlying surface in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area (TGRA), thereby affecting the hydrologic processes and water quality. However, the influence of the differences of underlying surfaces on the hydrologic processes and water quality in the TGRA has not been studied...

Supercritical water oxidation of quinoline with moderate preheat temperature and initial concentration

This work reports an experimental study on supercritical water oxidation of quinoline. Moderate preheat temperature (420 °C–510 °C) and initial concentration (1 wt%–10 wt%) are selected to address the possibility of utilizing the heat released during the reaction, in order to realize high conversion rate at relatively low preheat temperature....

Real-time Control of Combined Water Quantity & Quality in Open Channels

Fresh water supply and flood protection are two central issues in water management. Society needs more and more fresh water and a safe water system to guarantee a better life. A more severe climate will result in more droughts and extreme storms. As a consequence, salt water intrusion will increase. Therefore, clean and fresh water is becoming...

Functional model of water balance variability at the catchment scale: 1. Evidence of hydrologic similarity and space-time symmetry

This paper presents analysis of annual water balance variability, (1) regional (between-catchment) variability and (2) between-year (interannual) variability and the symmetry between the two. This involved analysis of the annual water balance in terms of a two-stage partitioning, first, of annual precipitation into quick flow and soil wetting...