The impact of environmental regulations on forest product trade in China

Forest product trade plays an important role in the development of the Chinese forest industry. The trading value of forest product has shown a yearly growth rate of 12% during the last five recent years. Stringent environmental regulations in China have a profound impact on raw material supplies and industrial production in the forest sector; however, their impact on the forest product trade is still unclear. This study applies fixed and random effects models as well as a seemingly unrelated regression model to investigate the impact of environmental regulations on the trade of forest product from 2002 to 2015. The results indicate that the stringent environmental regulations promoted the import but restricted the export of forest product in general. Specifically, the stringent environmental regulations stimulated the import but had an ambiguous impact on the export of the paper product. The stringent environmental regulations had also stimulated the import of wood product but inhibited the export. In contrast, wooden furniture had been affected minimally; only export got slightly negatively affected by environmental regulations. Recommendations for resource managers:

• Trade‐offs between economic growth and environmental regulations are needed to smoothly promote the forest product trade in China.
• Paper and wooden furniture product sectors are less likely to be affected by stringent environmental regulations, because high value‐added products could compensate for environmental costs.
• The wood product sector is more likely to be negatively affected by stringent environmental regulations because environmental costs could severely impact the competitiveness of low value‐added products.

     

The use of relative residues in fitting experimental data: an example from fluid mechanics

A curve fitting model is presented which minimizes the sum of squares of relative residues and expressions for the fit coefficients and their respective errors are derived. The new model is compared to the normal least squares model, using as an example the Reynolds number-drag coefficient data for a sphere. The results show that the best fit was obtained with the new model, indicating it may provide a useful tool for data analysis.     

Separation of Hydrocarbon Mixtures in the Microgram Range by Inclusion in a Urea-packed Mini Column

Abstract

The use of classical urea inclusion techniques for the separation of straight chain hydrocarbons from branched and cyclic compounds is satisfactory when applied to mixtures in the milligram to gram ranges, but leads to low separation efficiencies when quantities in the microgram to milligram range are involved. In this study, a modified inclusion technique using an urea-packed milli-bore column and a catalytic eluent is described. Examples of its use for the separation of mixtures of linear and cyclic hydrocarbons from 30μg up to a few milligrams are given. The versatility of this technique for the analyses of low amounts of environmental samples is described, and an application to the hydrocarbon fraction of surface sediment from lake Leman (Switzerland) is presented.     

Photocatalytic Activity of Supported Metal Nanoparticles and Single Atoms

Photocatalysis has been known as one of the promising technologies due to its eco-friendly nature. However, the potential application of many photocatalysts is limited owing to their large bandgaps and inefficient use of the solar spectrum. One strategy to overcome this problem is to combine the advantages of heteroatom-containing supports with active metal centers to accurately adjust the structural parameters. Metal nanoparticles (MNPs) and single atom catalysts (SACs) are excellent candidates due to their distinctive coordination environment which enhances photocatalytic activity. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), covalent organic frameworks (COFs) and carbon nitride (g-C₃N₄) have shown great potential as catalyst support for SACs and MNPs. The numerous combinations of organic linkers with various heteroatoms and metal ions provide unique structural characteristics to achieve advanced materials. This review describes the recent advancement of the modified MOFs, COFs and g-C₃N₄ with SACs and NPs for enhanced photocatalytic applications with emphasis on environmental remediation.     

Isotope Zusammensetzung Der Mineralwässer Der Mongolei

Abstract

The isotopic composition (D, ¹⁸O, ⁸⁷Sr, ³He) of thermal and mineral waters of Mongolia is discussed. The Sr-isotope ratio depends on the rock's contact. Near the Chubsugul-lake ³He-/⁴He-values are high. A certain similarity between the waters of Mongolia and those of East Siberia can be derived from the obtained data.     

Transferkoeffizienten im System Boden—Pflanze in verschiedenen Lokalitäten der Tschechoslovakei

Für die Ermittlung der Transferkoeffizienten im System Boden–Pflanze wurden in drei Stellen der Tschechoslovakei Boden- und Pflanzenproben entnommen. Die niedrigsten Transferkoeffizienten für Getreide und für mehrjährige Futterpflanzen wurden in der Ostslovakei festgestellt. Die Werte der Transferkoeffizienten waren durch den Bodentyp, den Gesamt-Sorptionskapazität und dem Grad der Sorptionssättigung beeinfluβt.

Soil and plant samples were sampled for the determination of soil to plant transfer coefficients in three various Czechoslovak sites. The lowesl transfer factors for cereals and fodder were determined in the site of Eastern Slovakia. Values of transfer factors depend on soil type, cation exchange capacity and base saturation of soils.     

State of the art and research development prospects of energy and resource-efficient environmentally safe chemical process systems engineering

In this focus overview, the main types and directions of engineering, methods and techniques of intensification of chemical process systems (CPS) and process optimization of energy- and resource-efficient processes for the representative production of titanium compounds, mining waste processing systems, electrochemical coating technologies, combined technologies for the treatment of industrial effluents and energy-and resource-efficient technologies for cleaning soils from petroleum and chemical pollution products are reviewed. The following issues have been discussed: methods of complex assessment of production energy efficiency and software and information support for automated synthesis of optimal energy-efficient regenerative heat exchange systems using pinch analysis; methods and algorithms for fractal-statistical characteristics analysis of nonstationary gas flows in complex gas pipelines; methods of ecological and economic optimization of production, infrastructure supply chains; methods for assessing and preventing the dangerous environmental impact assessment of chemical pollution; organization and logistics management of business processes engineering for improving the energy efficiency of plants; engineering of problem oriented computer systems, heuristic-computational models and algorithms for intelligent integrated logistics support of the equipment life cycle; engineering developments in the field of digital transformation of energy-efficient CPS and technological production systems; application of methods for optimizing reliability factors optimization, digitalized risk and safety management in the engineering of energy- and resource efficient CPS.     

Secondary Formation of Aromatic Nitroderivatives of Environmental Concern: Photonitration Processes Triggered by the Photolysis of Nitrate and Nitrite Ions in Aqueous Solution

Aromatic nitroderivatives are compounds of considerable environmental concern, because some of them are phytotoxic (especially the nitrophenols, and particularly 2,4-dinitrophenol), others are mutagenic and potentially carcinogenic (e.g., the nitroderivatives of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, such as 1-nitropyrene), and all of them absorb sunlight as components of the brown carbon. The latter has the potential to affect the climatic feedback of atmospheric aerosols. Most nitroderivatives are secondarily formed in the environment and, among their possible formation processes, photonitration upon irradiation of nitrate or nitrite is an important pathway that has periodically gained considerable attention. However, photonitration triggered by nitrate and nitrite is a very complex process, because the two ionic species under irradiation produce a wide range of nitrating agents (such as ^•NO₂, HNO₂, HOONO, and H₂OONO⁺), which are affected by pH and the presence of organic compounds and, in turn, deeply affect the nitration of aromatic precursors. Moreover, aromatic substrates can highly differ in their reactivity towards the various photogenerated species, thereby providing different behaviours towards photonitration. Despite the high complexity, it is possible to rationalise the different photonitration pathways in a coherent framework. In this context, this review paper has the goal of providing the reader with a guide on what to expect from the photonitration process under different conditions, how to study it, and how to determine which pathway(s) are prevailing in the formation of the observed nitroderivatives.