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Scenarios of scarcity, shortages, healthiness and scarcity are proposed to which HEIs would react, but with nuances according to the capacities of the areas of knowledge such as the case of health sciences and administrative economic sciences. [...]a Modeling is a mapping of the variables indicative of a behavior based on inclusion criteria such as the consensus of the literature regarding the SDG-6 and its observation in HEIs. [...]verifiability frameworks prevail in the biological and health sciences. [...]a comparison between different sources observing the same phenomenon generates the veracity of a data [9]. The IES only covers a few disciplines that respond to the development needs of the region, as well as the projected labor demand [10]. [...]the objective of this work is to contribute with empirical evidence to the SDG indicators: scarcity, drought, depletion, sanitation, purification, quality and floods [11].
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In recent years, with the outbreak and epidemic of the novel coronavirus in the world, how to obtain clean water from the limited resources has become an urgent issue of concern to all mankind. Atmospheric water harvesting technology and solar-driven interfacial evaporation technology have shown great potential in seeking clean and sustainable water resources. Here, inspired by a variety of organisms in nature, a multi-functional hydrogel matrix composed of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), sodium alginate (SA) cross-linked by borax as well as doped with zeolitic imidazolate framework material 67 (ZIF-67) and graphene owning macro/micro/nano hierarchical structure has successfully fabricated for producing clean water. The hydrogel not only can reach the average water harvesting ratio up to 22.44 g g-1 under the condition of fog flow after 5 h, but also be capable of desorbing the harvested water with water release efficiency of 1.67 kg m-2 h-1 under 1 sun. In addition to excellent performance in passive fog harvesting, the evaporation rate over 1.89 kg m-2 h-1 is attained under 1 sun on natural seawater during long-term. This hydrogel indicates its potential in producing clean water resources in multiple scenarios in different dry or wet states, and which holds great promise for flexible electronic materials and sustainable sewage or wastewater treatment applications.
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Water treatment systems play an essential role in dialysis therapy. The control of bacteriologi-cal water quality is vital to ensure a better quality of hemodialysis patient's life. The current study assessed the microbiological quality of the hemodialysis water system of four hemodialysis centers located in major public health centers in Amman, Jordan (Hemodialysis centers A, B, C, and D). Their water samples were collected monthly from the dialysis machine's water inlet before and during the COVID-19 pandemic between 2018 and 2021. Total heterotrophic bacterial counts (TC), detection of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and bacterial endotoxin (BE) concentrations were examined. According to international guidelines, most of the TC and BE results were within acceptable levels. However, some points were outside the limits, in addition to Pseudomonas aeruginosa being detected as well. These data indicated that the centers studied should revise the quality control management of their hemodialysis. This research emphasizes the importance of regular monitoring, main-tenance, and development of effective water treatment systems to avoid bacterial growth and the production of biofilms, even in pandemic situations. © 2023 Desalination Publications. All rights reserved.
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From the starting of the pandemic different transmission routes of the pathogen was brought into the spotlight by researchers from different disciplines. This matter in high-altitudes was more boosted as the main parameters were not exactly realized. In this review we are about to highlight the possibility of consuming contaminated water generated form solar water desalination/disinfection systems in highlands. Three systems including solar still, solar disinfection (which experimented by the authors in 2019 in high altitude) and humidification-dehumidification were consider in this context. Ascribe to the risks of pathogens transmission in solar desalination/disinfection systems where the water resources are heavily polluted in every corner of the world, highlighting the risk of consuming water in high-altitude where there are many other parameters associated with spread of pathogen is of great importance. As it was reported, reliability of solar desalination and solar water disinfections systems against contaminated water by the novel coronavirus remained on the question because the virus can be transmitted by vapor in solar stills due to tiny particle size (60-140 nm) and would not be killed by solar disinfections due to low-temperature of operation <40 °C while for HDH contamination of both water and air by sars-cov-2 could be a concern. Although the SARS-CoV-2 is not a waterborne pathogen, its capability to replicate in stomach and infection of gastrointestinal glandular suggested the potential of transmission via fecal-oral. Eventually, it was concluded that using solar-based water treatment as drinking water in high altitude regions should be cautiously consider and recommendations and considerations are presented. Importantly, this critical review not only about the ongoing pandemic, but it aims is to highlight the importance of produced drinking water by systems for future epidemic/pandemic to prevent spread and entering a pathogen particularly in high-altitude regions via a new routes.
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Desalination based on solar-driven interfacial steam generation has emerged as an efficient and cost-effective solution to the freshwater crisis. However, an alternative approach needs to adopt to alleviate the freshwater crisis and environmental pollution simultaneously. The widespread use of surgical face mask during the COVID-19 pandemic introduces a new environmental concern related to face mask disposal. Herein, a solar evaporator is fabricated by coating novel TiTe2 quantum dots (QDs) decorated reduced graphene oxide (rGO) on a hydrophilic substrate derived from waste face mask to desalinate seawater with an evaporation rate and efficiency of 2.09 kg m−2 h−1 and 87.79% respectively. The presence of rGO contributes to absorb a wide range of the solar spectrum, while the quantum confinement effect of QDs confines heat at the nanoscale. The use of heat sink and extended polyurethane foam (EPE) improve heat localization by minimizing heat loss. The freshwater generated by solar evaporation satisfies the WHO drinking water standard. As a result, the proposed design may reduce environmental pollutants by recycling the waste facemask while producing freshwater using only incident solar irradiation, establishing a waste-water nexus with large-scale deployment potential.
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The unprecedented situation of the COVID-19 pandemic heavily polluted water bodies whereas the presence of SARS-CoV-2, even in treated wastewater in every corner of the world is reported. The main aim of the present study is to show the effectiveness and feasibility of some well-known desalination technologies which are reverse osmosis (RO), Electrodialysis (ED), Membrane Distillation (MD), multi effect distillation (MED), and multi stage flashing (MSF) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Systems' effectiveness against the novel coronavirus based on three parameters of nasopharynx/nasal saline-irrigation, temperature of operation and pretreatment methods are evaluated. First, based on previous clinical studies, it showed that using saline solution (hypertonic saline >0.9% concentration) for gargling/irrigating of nasal/nasopharynx/throat results in reducing and replication of the viral in patients, subsequently the feed water of desalination plants which has concentration higher than 3.5% (35000ppm) is preventive against the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Second, the temperature operation of thermally-driven desalination;MSF and MED (70-120°C) and MD (55-85°C) is high enough to inhibit the contamination of plant structure and viral survival in feed water. The third factor is utilizing various pretreatment process such as chlorination, filtration, thermal/precipitation softening, ultrafiltration (mostly for RO, but also for MD, MED and MSF), which are powerful treatment methods against biologically-contaminated feed water particularly the SARS-CoV-2. Eventually, it can be concluded that large-scale desalination plants during COVID-19 and similar situation are completely reliable for providing safe drinking water.
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The carbon emissions of sectors and households enabled by primary inputs have practical significance in reality. Considering the mutual effect between the industrial sector and the household, this paper firstly constructed an environmentally extended semi-closed Ghosh input–output model with an endogenized household sector to analyze the relationship between carbon emissions and the Chinese economy from the supply-side perspective. The structural decomposition analysis and the hypothetical extraction method were remodified to identify the supply-side driving effects of the changes in carbon emissions and investigate the net carbon linkage. The results show that the electricity, gas, and water supply sector was the key sector with the highest carbon emission intensity enabled by primary inputs. The household sector had an above 93% indirect effect of the enabled intensity, with its enabled intensity dropping significantly by more than 55% from 2007 to 2017. The operating surplus and mixed income caused 3214.67 Gt (34.17%) of the enabled emissions in 2017. The supply-side economic activity, measured by the value added per capita, was the main factor of the carbon emission growth, mainly attributed to the development of the manufacturing sector and the electricity, gas, and water supply sector. The emission intensity and allocation structure both brought a decrease in carbon emissions. The electricity, gas, and water supply sector and the manufacturing sector were the major sources of the supply-induced cross-sectoral input emissions, while the commercial and service sector and the household sector were the top source of supply-induced cross-sectoral output emissions. This paper sheds light on the policies of the carbon emission abatement and the adjustment of the allocation structure from the perspective of supply.
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Guaranteeing reliable access to water and clean energy has been one of the most debated topics to promote sustainable development, which has made the Water–Energy Nexus (WEN) a relevant field of study. However, despite much development of the WEN, there are still many gaps to be addressed. One of these gaps is the understanding of temporal features. To address this, this study aimed to identify, categorize, and analyze the main temporal features applied in WEN studies based on a review of academic publications from 2010 to 2021. The results showed that most of the recent literature has focused on understanding the WEN from a quantitative perspective, often does not provide clear motivations for their choice of time, and lacks understanding of the role of historical processes. To improve the temporal understanding in WEN research, there is a need to include more methodological diversity, enhance the understanding of historical developments, and diversify the data use. The presented measures provide a chance to improve the evaluation of key issues, enhance the understanding of drivers of trade-offs between the water and energy sectors, and ground the discussion besides quantification. Moreover, these measures help the scientific community better communicate results to a broader audience.
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The current Covid-19 aggravates membrane biofouling issue caused by bacteria and viruses which are widely present in water. Herein we synthesized a series of polyamide (PA)-based membranes engineered with distinct metal ions (Cu2+, Fe3+) via one-step metal-ligand ligation for forward osmosis (FO) separation. The antibacterial and desalting behavior of membrane were investigated by systematically varying the influential factors including the charge status, complexation ability and antibacterial mechanism of metal ions as well as testing conditions. All the newly synthesized membranes exhibit better performance with markedly increased water permeability and selectivity. Therein the Fe3+ − membrane increases water fluxes by 93% (FO mode) and 112% (PRO mode) relative to the nascent PA membrane with 0.5 M NaCl as the draw solution. Both Cu2+ and Fe3+ on membrane surface dramatically improve the membrane bactericidal efficacy against Escherichia coli via destroying the bacterial phospholipid layer. Remarkably, the metal ions on membrane surface are easily regenerated after being consumed by bacteria by simply immersing the membranes into the corresponding nitrate solutions. The separation performance and antibacterial properties of the regenerated membranes are comparable to those of the fresh membranes. When using brine from reverse osmosis process as the draw solution, the Fe3+ membrane recovers water from brackish water up to 70% higher than the nascent PA membrane. This study provides a practical strategy to develop FO membrane with sustainable antibacterial activity and desalination performance.
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Plastic waste caused by the extensive usage of face masks during COVID-19 pandemic has become a severe threat to natural environment and ecosystem. Herein, an eco-friendly approach to repurpose face mask waste for clean water production via solar thermal evaporation is proposed. By taking advantage of its interwind structure, face mask holds the promise to be an ideal candidate material for constructing photothermal evaporator. In-situ surface modifications are performed successively with polyvinyl alcohol and polypyrrole to improve its wettability and solar absorption (97%). The obtained face mask-based evaporator achieves significantly enhanced solar efficiency (91.5%) and long-term salt-rejection stability. The harvested clean water befits plant growing to enable farming on sea surface. A floating photothermal evaporation prototype is then developed to demonstrate autonomous solar ocean farming, with plants successfully cultivated over time. As such, the proposed strategy provides a promising solution towards ecological sustainability by tapping multiple benefits.
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The purpose of our study was to reduce the carbon footprint of seawater desalination plants that use reverse osmosis membranes by introducing on-site renewable energy sources. By using new-generation membranes with a low energy consumption and considering wind and photovoltaic energy sources, it is possible to greatly reduce the carbon footprint of reverse osmosis plants. The objective of this study was to add a renewable energy supply to a desalination plant that uses reverse osmosis technology. During the development of this research study, photovoltaic energy was discarded as a possible source of renewable energy due to the wind conditions in the area in which the reverse osmosis plant was located; hence, the installation of a wind turbine was considered to be the best option. As it was a large-capacity reverse osmosis plant, we decided to divide the entire desalination process into several stages for explanation purposes. The desalination process of the facility consists of several phases: First, the seawater capture process was performed by the intake tower. This water was then transported and stored, before going through a physical and chemical pre-treatment process, whereby the highest possible percentage of impurities and organic material was eliminated in order to prevent the plugging of the reverse osmosis modules. After carrying out the appraisals and calculating the amount of energy that the plant consumed, we determined that 15% of the plant's energy supply should be renewable, corresponding to 1194 MWh/year. As there was already a wind power installation in the area, we decided to use one of the wind turbines that had already been installed-specifically, an Ecotecnia turbine (20-150) that produced an energy of 1920 MWh /year. This meant that only a single wind turbine was required for this project.
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The COVID-19 pandemic disturbed the world from the beginning of 2020. The high excessive number of patients and the presence of the SARS-CoV-2 in human excreta and urine even after the infected person's respiratory tests were negative, results in a heavy load of viral in various water bodies and mostly untreated wastewaters. In the present study, the reliability of using small-scale solar thermal desalination systems (solar stills) during a situation like the COVID-19 pandemic is discussed. Pollution of water bodies through the SARS-CoV-2 via numerous routes increases the risk of contaminating the feed water and subsequently the whole structure of solar stills. Since the transmission of pathogens (particle size: 0.5-3 µm) via droplets of water in solar still is reported before, transmitting of SARS-CoV-2 via droplets of water which multiple times smaller (particle size: 60-140 nm) than those pathogens is a concern. The most important issue which must be highlighted is that solar stills worked at low-temperature while the viability and survival of the SARS-CoV-2 in various water matrices in the temperature range (4-37 °C) for several days is reported. In this regard, using solar stills during the COVID-19 pandemic need further consideration by all researchers and people around the world.