Themed collection Outstanding Papers of 2024 from RSC’s Environmental Science journals

Optical surrogates are used to characterize dissolved organic matter composition like aromaticity and molecular weight. We both review the genesis of surrogate-composition relationships and critically evaluate additional supporting evidence.

Treating PFAS-contaminated water is challenging due to the recalcitrant nature of PFAS. This review discusses advances in NF/RO membranes for separating PFAS from water and introduces a total management plan for handling the concentrated PFAS stream.

Here we made a critical review on nanozyme-involved detection and degradation of environmental pollutants, and the research progress achieved in the last five years was emphatically concluded.

This article reviews scientific evidence for the potential environmental impacts of stratospheric aerosol injection, a form of solar radiation geoengineering.

The increasing need for food and agricultural resources necessitates using pesticides to protect plants, but this approach also poses pesticide poisoning and environmental hazards.

Suspended nanoplastics can be removed from the water column with nanobubbles if interparticle repulsive forces are overcome by pH adjustment.

Addition of cationic surfactant in combination with powdered activated carbon significantly enhanced the removal of regulated PFAS during conventional coagulation/flocculation processes.

Chemical profiling of artificial turf crumb rubber reveals time-based trends in transformation products and transport pathways.

Adding clay nanoparticles into PVDF MMMs enhances MD performance. Higher OMT loadings improve contact angle, LEP, and flux. Long-term operation shows no flux reduction. Humic acid foulant reduces clay membrane flux by 45% vs. 60% for commercial PVDF.

Combining ultrafiltration and advanced oxidation processes, a single-step reactor removes aqueous PFAS and destroys them in situ, allowing long-term reuse of the effective photocatalyst.

Anthropogenic contaminants can place significant stress on vegetation, especially when they are taken up into plants.

Indoor BrC-containing cooking organic aerosols (BrCOA) can act as sensitizers generating the first excited state of molecular oxygen, singlet oxygen, under indoor lighting conditions. Sustained singlet oxygen steady-state levels lead to prolonged oxidation of indoor aerosols impacting air quality.

Pharmaceutical waste and contaminants pose a significant global concern for water and food safety.

Short-chain and ultrashort-chain per-/polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have become ubiquitous in aquatic environments worldwide, and their concentrations are rising.

Cleaning products emit a range of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), including some which are hazardous or can undergo chemical transformations to generate harmful secondary pollutants.

This study assesses the environmental impact of the fluoropolymer industry in Europe by making an inventory of their emissions of PFASs and other fluorinated organic substances.

Machine learning is increasingly popular and promising in environmental science due to its potential in solving various environmental problems, particularly with simple code-free tools.

This study investigates the effects of temperature and relative humidity on the formation of secondary organic aerosol from Δ³-carene, a prevalent monoterpene in boreal forests.