Themed collection UN Sustainable Development Goal 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities.

Smart feedback water system with Arduino flow sensors, AI/ML analytics, mobile dashboard, real-time tracking, predictive insights, personalized reports for global sustainability challenges and efficient water management solutions.

Advancing the future of wood plastic composites: a synergy of materials, methods, and sustainability.

Engineering microbial metabolism is tapped potential to convert industrial waste and by-products into high-value chemical products, providing a more sustainable alternative to traditionally oil-derived chemicals.

Coffee husk is rich in bioactive compounds with functional properties and holds significant potential for various applications that promote a sustainable circular economy.

Nitrogen (N)-doped materials derived from biomass hold great promise for energy storage, gas adsorption, catalysis, and water treatment, offering an effective strategy for waste valorization.

Polycotton waste textile valorisation; upgrading waste cotton from polycotton (left) to the platform chemical glucose without affecting the polyester (right).

This review highlights the potential of lignocellulosic biomass as an eco-friendly component in green and sustainable construction materials, addressing environmental challenges through up-to-date research, applications, and life-cycle assessments.

PSCs still face challenges such as lead toxicity. SCAPS-1D stands out as a valuable tool for investigating alternative metals as replacements for lead. This article reviews 54 simulation studies using SCAPS-1D, focusing on lead-free PSCs.

The role and potential implications of Negative Emission Technologies (NETs) for atmospheric CO₂ removal and long-term storage, supporting global efforts toward net-zero climate goals.

A currently accepted strategy for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from fossil fuels is to replace them with biofuels.

A comparative analysis of battery types, including primary, secondary, specialty, and emerging technologies. Key findings highlight charge time variations, energy storage efficiency, and scalability for future advancements in battery technology.

This study assesses Nigeria's renewable energy materials landscape, highlighting solar, wind, biomass, and hydro resources, challenges, and pathways for enhancing local capacity for a sustainable energy future.

Design for recycle unlocks selective and efficient recycling of technology critical metals.

Integrating Circular Economy (CE) principles with Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) to promote equitable, sustainable and proactive materials design of consumer durable goods.

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.

Phytomining, the extraction of valuable metals from soil or waste substrates using plants, has gained increasing attention as a sustainable and economically viable alternative to conventional mining practices.

This study reviews saccharification technologies, focusing on HCl-based methods, their industrial evolution, and challenges in scaling, emphasizing the historical progress and ongoing need for innovation.

The image displays various biowastes, important constituents, and possible products of the pretreatment process.

Thermochemical and bioprocessing are feasible for recovering valuable building block molecules from plastic residues. Chemo-enzymatic treatment of waste plastic-biomass mixtures is an open challenge due to the diverse composition of the residues.

Low DS spatioselective acetylation of paper shows control over biodegradability, without bulk modification of the fibres.

An efficient, low-energy consumption, low-carbon emission and sustainable oxidation of C–H bonds with O₂ was realized utilizing porphyrins as photocatalysts under irradiation of visible light, and a successful reference of learning from nature.

The following study cements vanillin’s position as a leading replacement for BPA-based epoxy resins in high performance epoxy–amine composite applications.

Microwave-assisted methanolysis of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) to dimethyl terephthalate (DMT) was catalysed by a recyclable, inexpensive non-stoichiometric protic ionic liquid from sulfuric acid and triethylamine.

Since the early 21st century, biochar (BC) has garnered attention for its agricultural and environmental applications.

The ProFA process aims for the production of proteins and formic acid from macroalgae with a focus on resource utilisation and innovation.

Bacillus thuringiensis was isolated from soil and used to biodegrade chrome shaving dust. Optimal degradation (94.8%) was achieved at 35% seed, 12.86% nutrients, and 101.27 h. This simple, efficient microbial process outperforms enzymatic methods.

Systems analysis tools such as material flow analysis, process simulation, life cycle assessment, and system optimization were applied to minimize environmental impacts of the U.S. plastics packaging recycling infrastructure in a circular economy.

CMX-0.04 composite films exhibited high UV (≈100%) and HEBL (≈97.5%) blocking performance with enhanced mechanical properties (303% and 830% increased tensile and Young's modulus, respectively) and excellent film flexibility.

An investigation into the addition of CO₂ to the feedstock for a Fischer–Tropsch-to-olefins catalyst indicates a role for CO₂ perturbing the equilibrium between iron carbides and oxides.

Herein, we have synthesized high-performance, low-cost ionomer biocomposites comprised of sulfonated poly(ether ether ketone) (SPEEK) and softwood Kraft lignin with proton selectivities three- to ten-fold higher than that of neat SPEEK.

Microplastics are present in nearly all environments.

Cellulose acetate (CA) membranes incorporated with amino acids (AAs) and ionic liquids (ILs) fabricated using phase inversion technique have been proven to be efficient and effective for nanofiltration to treat heavy metal ion solutions.

The specialty chemical sector offers unique opportunities for the development of electrochemical reaction processes to integrate low-carbon electricity and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.