Themed collection UN Sustainable Development Goal 9: Industry, Innovation & Infrastructure

Waste-derived biochar electrodes enhance microbial electrosynthesis by improving electron transfer, sustainability and scalability, offering a cost-effective route for CO₂ conversion into biochemicals and supporting circular economy goals.

Asymmetric catalysis is a key technology that provides enantiomerically pure compounds that are vital for the pharmaceutical, agrochemical and food and fragrance industries.

New regulation has banned some industrial uses of methylene chloride (dichloromethane, DCM) in the USA. What are the alternatives?

The overarching goal of global energy decarbonization, envisioned to combat climate change, should be coupled with material defossilization, which is just as crucial to target waste accumulation and fossil fuel depletion.

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

Safe-and-sustainable-by-design (SSbD) is a pre-market approach that integrates innovation with safety and sustainability along the entire life cycle.

Advanced catalytic strategies for CO₂ to MeOH conversion focus on approaches utilizing noble metals. These methods leverage noble metal catalysts to facilitate CO₂ molecule activation and promote reduction to MeOH under mild conditions.

Chemistry should adopt material stewardship as a central mission in fulfilling its vital role in sustainability for people and planet.

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 advanced catalytic processes that hold industrial relevance for transforming plastic waste into sustainable fuels, chemical feedstock and advance materials, thereby facilitating chemical circular economy. Image partially generated using iStock AI Image Generator.

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.

Laccases allow selective oxidative chemical conversions of lignocellulosic compounds with the help of ionic liquids or deep eutectic solvents.

This review explores eco-friendly materials in 3D printing biodegradable polymers, bio-composites, and hybrids—highlighting processes, advancements, and applications that drive sustainable manufacturing across diverse fields.

Plasma-based nitrogen fixation, leveraging non-thermal plasma technologies, offers a promising alternative to conventional processes, with the potential to decentralize fertilizer production, reduce CO₂ emissions, and employ renewable energy sources.

This review takes a closer look at the life-cycle of inverse vulcanized polymers and if they can be more sustainable alternatives to commodity materials in energy storage, remediation technology, agriculture or construction.

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 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.

HPTPs exhibit ordered porosity and tunable coordination environments. This review highlights the synthetic strategies, structural morphology, and multifunctional applications spanning catalysis, adsorption, ion exchange, sensing, and energy storage.

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

The growing generation of electronic waste (e-waste) presents significant environmental and economic challenges while offering opportunities for resource recovery through the extraction of valuable 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.

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.

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.

Biomass-derived renewable olefins act as sustainable and cost-effective starting materials in the production of industrially valuable chemicals, such as aldehydes, amines and other compounds, through hydroformylation and related one-pot reactions.

Using mixtures of mono-alcohols and polyols brings unexplored benefits to develop more sustainable syntheses of colloidal nanoparticles.

The use of low(er) purity chemicals leads to size-controlled gold nanoparticles that are active catalysts for water treatment.

Low-methyl esterified pectin with a degree of methylation of 33% was shaped into continuous textile fibres via wet spinning with a calcium chloride coagulation bath.

Hybrid perovskite solar cells spray-coated with polystyrene retain 80% of their original efficiency after 40 hours immersed in water or temperatures of 95 °C.

Complex polysaccharide substrates can serve as direct feedstocks for PHA biosynthesis, potentially eliminating the need for extra processing steps and significantly lowering production costs for sustainable plastics.

Noble gas plasma-collisional splitting (NgPCS) is an emerging hydrogen production technology.

Thermally treated silicon–graphite @graphite based anode with cross-linked carboxy methyl cellulose–polyacrylic acid as a binder enable effective mitigation of volume expansion during cycling and stable electrochemical performance.

The correlations between woody biomass properties and the mechanical and thermal performances of the 3D-printed poplar-plastic composites were investigated.

A GC/FID method was developed and thoroughly validated, including a round robin test, to enable objective comparison of three lignin depolymerisation methods using the same lignosulphonate feedstock.

Measuring sustainability in international chemicals management: we present 23 indicators as a contribution to the Global Framework on Chemicals. Due to the overarching concept of sustainable chemistry, the indicators are related to several SDGs.

Electrochemical quantification of totarolone in Tetraclinis articulata extract.

H₂ evolving photodissolution of cellulose paper was successfully achieved by combining dual-dye-sensitized photocatalysts and a 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidine 1-oxyl oxidation catalyst.

Heavy metal contamination, particularly mercury (Hg²⁺), poses severe environmental and health risks even at trace levels.

Global warming caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, particularly carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, has garnered significant attention due to its detrimental environmental impacts.

Functionalization of marine-derived carrageenan was performed to design hydrogels for use in drug delivery carriers.

For the first time, Nb-doped BiVO₄ photoanodes enable efficient photoreforming of real agroindustrial residues into green hydrogen and value-added products.

The chemical recycling of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) via glycolysis is a promising route for recovering the monomer bis(2-hydroxyethyl) terephthalate (BHET), which can be used for virgin-grade PET production.

A general, mild, and environmentally friendly method for synthesizing sulfonamides in sustainable solvents was developed.

A simple biocatalytic two-step process has been optimised to produce the capsaicinoid olvanil, starting from biomass-derived oleic acid and vanillin and using only biobased reagents and catalysts.

An integrated protic ionic liquid mediated lignin extraction and enzymatic depolymerization process for softwood biomass.

Biocatalytic ibuprofen synthesis enhanced via in silico-guided rational enzyme design.

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

A new family of glycerol derived ionic liquids with tunable properties and interesting applications as hydroxycinnamic acids solubilizers or as reaction media for Pd NPs recoverable catalytic systems.

Carbonate anions are formed following CO₂ absorption in real brines made alkaline via electrolysis. The addition of soda ash is thus fully replaced in the lithium carbonate crystallization process, resulting in a more sustainable mining process.

Water ultrasound-assisted preparation of a novel magnetic nanocatalyst, Fe₃O₄@keratin-Cu(II) and it's use for rapid and green one-pot synthesis of 1,2,3-triazolo-pyrimido-benzimidazole derivatives (5a–x) in good to excellent yields.

A unique quaternary diammonium salt and urea (1 : 2)-containing deep eutectic solvent (DES) is introduced as a simple and efficient catalytic medium for the atom-economic synthesis of oxazolidinone compounds from epoxides and isocyanates.

Biodegradable polymer matrices, PCL and PBSA were used to fabricate magnetic composites with recycled NdFeB and rare earth-free lab-synthesized ferrite fillers (SrFe₁₂O₁₉ and SrFe₁₂O₁₉–CoFe₂O₄) across a wide filling range (1–90%).

A sustainable and scalable Ritter reaction using a reusable FeCl₃·6H₂O/glycerol-based DES enables efficient amidation of secondary/tertiary alcohols with nitriles under mild conditions, with broad scope, and low environmental impact.

Biomass-derived diols are desired for the sustainable chemical manufacturing of textiles and plastics; synergy between Pt metal and acid sites in a Pt/amorphous silica-aluminate catalyst offers a selective and scalable route to 1,5-pentanediol.

We demonstrate the conversion of a reactive carbon capture solution into CO using electricity provided by thermoelectric generators. The temperature differences that exist on Mars or at geothermal sites on earth are both capable of driving reactive carbon capture and conversion.

A low-cost, recyclable ionic liquid generates sustainable cellulose, renewable small molecules and lignin-derived carbon fibres from wood biomass.

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

This study aims to develop eco-compatible textile finishing with enhanced washing durability by a sustainable approach with no toxic auxiliaries. Improper treatment conditions can hinder the desired properties of quercetin treated cotton fabric.

An iron(III)- and oxygen-promoted one-pot method for the efficient syntheses of quinolines from amino acids, alkyl lactate, and arylamine was carried out.

Functionalized poly(aspartic acid) (PASP) hydrogels enhance enzyme immobilization: carrier II notably extends Candida antarctica lipase B's stability and reusability.

We present a mechanochemical protocol for the efficient depolymerisation of bio-based poly(ethylene furanoate) (PEF) and poly(butylene furanoate) (PBF) as alternatives to commodity plastics such as poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET).

A sustainable hydrothermal carbonization route valorizes expired iron supplements into magnetite nanoparticles, offering low-energy nanomaterial fabrication for water treatment and other industrial applications.

Development of a chemo-enzymatic cascade process for the sustainable conversion of canola oil into hydrocarbon fuels, integrating enzymatic hydrolysis, hydrogenation, and photodecarboxylation under continuous-flow conditions.

Two new 2D coordination polymers were synthesized, scaled-up and applied as efficient and recyclable heterogeneous catalysts for the mild oxidation of α-pinene into value added products.

Carbon dioxide chemisorption mechanisms are heavily influenced by the nature of hydrogen-bond donors, either hydration water or intramolecular hydroxyl groups in choline cations, in carboxylate ionic liquids.

This study shows for the first time that tetraazamacrocyclic complexes for the conversion of CO₂ and epoxides cyclic carbonates in ionic liquids. Using Ni(cyclam)Cl₂ and BMimBr, 100% conversion is achieved in 24 hours at −1.8 V vs. Ag/AgCl.

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.