Themed collection RSC Sustainability Hot Papers

Natural organic materials might offer a sustainable solution at the crossroads of technological progress and environmental degradation.

Traditional lab practices contribute to environmental issues through excessive energy consumption, hazardous- and single-use waste generation, and resource depletion. Sustainable laboratory practices are vital for the education of future scientists.

As the global energy landscape transitions towards a more diversified mix, with electricity and hydrogen constituting half of the final energy consumption by 2050, the focus on efficient and sustainable hydrogen production intensifies.

Chemistry has a vital role in enabling the reductions in greenhouse gases, stewardship of material resources and new production processes needed to bring net CO₂ emissions to zero by 2050, keeping within 1.5 °C of global warming.

The developments in enzymology and biocatalytic processes designed as per the rules of green chemistry and green engineering are the keys to the concepts of biorefinery and bioeconomy which in turn enable sustainable development.

Presented here is an overview of progress in one approach to reducing greenhouse gas emission, namely substituting photosynthesis generated, woody biomass for fossil carbon as feedstock in the production of chemicals and liquid fuels.

Key reactions and possible biomass resources for the synthesis of industrially important unsaturated compounds are summarized.

Enabling the design of silica materials with ordered and controllable pore structure using the principles of green and sustainable chemistry.

Current European (EU) policies, such as the Green Deal, envisage safe and sustainable by design (SSbD) practices for the management of chemicals, which cogently entail nanomaterials (NMs) and advanced materials (AdMa).

A review of the most representative advances in the chemical degradation of polythers and polysiloxanes, both in academia and industry.

The unique characteristics of oxygen-doped g-C₃N₄ (O@g-C₃N₄), including enhanced charge carrier mobility and changed electronic structure, make it especially appealing for photocatalytic applications.

This tutorial review aims at providing a complete overview of the strategies for the conversion of lignocellulose in current and future biorefineries, with a particular focus on the transformation of lignin toward valuable products.

Cu-MOF has gained attention due to its exceptional thermal stability, large surface area and pore volume. This review summarizes its advantages covering synthesis, reactivity and applications in removing toxic pharmaceutical residues from wastewater.

3D printing has been elaborated in all stages of a continuous flow biocatalytic process, from the reactor to the support material for biocatalyst confinement or the peripheral accessories that can establish a highly controlled process.

This review highlights how the inherent properties of cellulose have been employed to improve the properties of ionic conductive hydrogels (IHCs) and their application in fabricating iontronics.

Vegetable oils and lipids, terpenes, lignin derivatives, carbohydrates, and proteins are used as biomass feedstock to prepare new bio-based monomers for radical polymerization in aqueous dispersed media, producing bio-based latexes.

Production quantity ratio of petroleum derived chemical products. This also presents the concept of replacing all petroleum-based chemical products with natural biomass-based chemical products.

A design of PET mechanical recycling at the industrial scale requires the inspection of the relevance of pre-treatment steps, degradation reactions and repair potential, accounting for the impact of contamination (e.g. NIAS) and regulations.

This review outlines the evolution, current status, and future trends in utilizing DESs as extraction solvents with innovative techniques to recover valuable compounds from natural sources for diverse laboratory and industrial applications.

g-C₃N₄: a sustainable game-changer in photocatalysis. This work explores synthesis, properties, mechanisms, and applications, addresses challenges, and charts future trends.

Immobilization of eutectic mixtures in supramolecular gels formed using low molecular weight gelators is a smart strategy to expand their design space. Advances in the last five years are reviewed from the viewpoint of sustainability.

An overview of the importance of green chemistry in synthesizing fluorescent carbon quantum dots as an effective tool for metal ion sensing is discussed. Various synthesis methods and mechanisms involved in metal ion sensing using CQDs are presented.

This work examines the process of using lignocellulosic biomass for cost-effective polyhydroxyalkanoate production, from pre-treatment to extraction.

A review on the selective catalytic hydrodeoxygenation of lignin biomass derived compounds. The focus is on recent reports which highlight achievements in selectively and reactivity trends which lead to deoxygenated aromatic products.

This review aims to assess the advances in protein extraction and separation from non-animal biomass using alternative solvents, namely ILs, and DESs. Also, the economic and environmental challenges of using such alternative solvents are discussed.

The growing development of technology has increased the amount of waste generated by electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) every year.

In the contemporary world, evolution of the scientific field has reached an elevation but has its own intricacies.

The current generation is looking for new materials and technology to reduce the dependency on fossil fuels, exploring sustainable energy sources to maintain the future energy demand and supply.

Cu nanoparticles decorated on CoO_x nanosheets are synthesized by an in situ reduction of bimetallic Cu-Co-MOF-74 which simultaneously catalyses efficient AB hydrolysis.

Platinum group metal nanoparticles (Pt, Pd, and Rh) were synthesized in aqueous NaCl solutions using, as reducing agent, H₂/CO electrogenerated in situ by the reduction of CO₂ and water.

Long-loop recycling of spent lithium-ion batteries is neither sustainable nor economical at scale.

We conduct a harmonized lifecycle greenhouse gas assessment to compare the carbon removal efficiency and total energy required for twelve engineered carbon removal technologies.

Polymers bearing hydrophobic amino acid moieties were synthesized, and their binding affinities with wood lignin were investigated. The polymers bearing tryptophan and phenylalanine moieties were observed to exhibit high binding affinity.

Expanded polystyrene (EPS) is a widely used plastic material that poses significant environmental challenges due to its resistance to degradation.

A streamlined workflow is established for the recovery of graphite from industrial lithium-ion battery black mass, which could be seamlessly integrated into the existing cathode materials recycling processes developed in the industry.

The separation and recovery of PET monomers from chemical recycling is demonstrated with the use of supramolecular binding.

A novel precursor phase (Mn, Fe)₅(PO₄)₂(HPO₄)₂·4H₂O is introduced with a co-precipitation reaction, enabling a low-cost, sustainable, scalable production of LMFP cathodes exhibiting excellent cycling stability with good tap density.

A halogen-free bleaching of shellac was developed using electrochemically generated peroxodicarbonate with acetonitrile as an activator. A reduced bleaching damage is obtained compared to previous halogen-free bleaching reports.

This study presents a comprehensive sustainability framework, showing the concept's different sides or perspectives and its derivatives.

Hydrogel capsules are used to encapsulate yeast for the scalable and efficient removal of trace lead from water.

Upcycling of lithium cobalt oxide (LCO) into lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide (NMC111) cathode material using acetone antisolvent crystallization of citrate leachate followed by sol–gel synthesis with complementary metal acetate or sulfate salts.

Increasingly Findable, Accessible, Reusable and Interoperable (FAIR) nanomaterials environmental health and safety (nanoEHS) data and demoncratised access to nanoinformatics models will directly support 12 SDGs and indireclty benefit the other 5 SDGs.

The increase of digitization, alongside the growth in consumer electronics and shortened life cycles, has led to a significant global increase in the volume of electronic waste (e-waste).

Unveiling the potential of blue hydrogen: empowering global research networks for a sustainable energy evolution.

By exposing more interfaces, utility of heterostructured electrodes in capacitance retention has been further expanded to devices with a large-scale 3D network. IGO@ZIF-8-NC was described as a symmetric supercapacitor device which paves the way forward for sustainable capacitive devices.

We propose an affordable and safe route to recover palladium in its metallic form from waste fashion items and recycle it in electronic devices.

Pt shows excellent catalytic activity towards the methanol oxidation reaction (MOR) and oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), but suffers from deactivation due to the weak interaction with the carbon support and the oxidation of carbon.

Visible-light driven fumarate synthesis from pyruvate and gaseous CO₂ with a hybrid system of photocatalytic NADH regeneration and dual biocatalysts (malate dehydrogenase and fumarase) was developed.

Bis(pentafluorophenyl)borinic acid was investigated as a bench-stable Lewis acid catalyst for the hydrosilyation of carbonyl functionalities. The reactivity was benchmarked to other effective frustrated Lewis pair catalysts.

Environmental pollution due to dye industries is a major concern as it affects both aquatic and human life.

Phytic acid (PA) carbonization at 900 °C produces P-doped carbons with outstanding ORR electrocatalytic activity, highlighting the potential of PA-derived carbon materials in energy conversion.

An integrated process using Eucalyptus globulus essential oil as a bio-based solvent to extract triterpenic acids from hydrodistilled leaves is discussed.

The use of flow-through (FT) systems in the lignin-first approach can improve the proficiency of the process. Herein, the reductive catalytic fractionation of beech wood sawdust was conducted in an FT system using 35Ni/NDC pellets.

Using supercritical fluids, our novel process selectively extracts rare earth elements from coal fly ashes that were previously considered as waste and an environmental threat.

Furan based building blocks have potential of introducing new commodity chemicals at low cost with low carbon impact.

Testing composite carbon-based anode materials for high-perfoming soil microbial fuel cells.