Upcycling municipal solid waste to sustainable hydrogen via two-stage gasification-reforming

As global municipal solid waste(MSW)quantities continue to escalate,serious socio-environmental challenges arise,necessitating innovative solutions.Waste-to-hydrogen(WTH)via two-stage gasification-reforming(TSGR)presents an emergent technology for MSW upcycling,offering to ease waste management burdens and bolster the burgeoning hydrogen economy.Despite early initiatives to advance TSGR technology,a cohesive and critical analysis of cutting-edge knowledge and strategies to enhance hydrogen production remains lacking.This review aggregates literature on MSW upcycling to hydrogen via TSGR,with a focus on optimizing process control and catalytic efficiency.It underscores technological avenues to augment hydrogen output,curtail catalyst costs,and refine system performance.Particularly,the review illuminates the potential for integrating chemical and calcium looping into TSGR processes,identifying opportunities,and pinpointing challenges.The review concludes with a summary of the current state of techno-economic analysis for this technology,presenting outstanding challenges and future research directions,with the ultimate goal of transitioning WTH from theoretical to practical application.

Ru-based catalysts for efficient CO_(2) methanation:Synergistic catalysis between oxygen vacancies and basic sites

The fundamental insights of the reaction mechanism,especially the synergistic effect between oxygen vacancies and basic sites,are highly promising yet challenging for Ru-based catalysts during carbon dioxide(CO_(2))methanation.Herein,a series of Rubased catalysts were employed to study the mechanism of CO_(2) methanation.It is found that Ru/CeO_(2) catalyst exhibits a much higher CO_(2) conversion(86%)and CH4 selectivity(100%),as well as excellent stability of 30 h due to the existence of abundant oxygen vacancies and weak basic sites.Additionally,the in-situ diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy(DRIFTS)and density functional theory(DFT)calculations reveal that the formate formation step dominated the hydrogenation route on Ru/CeO_(2) catalyst,and the b-HCOO^(*)could be the key intermediate due to b-HCOO^(*)is more easily hydrogenated to methane than m-HCOO^(*).The systematic study marks the significance of precise tailoring of the synergistic relationship between oxygen vacancies and basic sites for achieving the desired performance in CO_(2) methanation.

What should be done for the ＂second half＂ of China＇s urbanization？

China is experiencing the most extensive and fastest urbanization in human history.Since the reform and opening-up in 1978,with rapid industrialization,750million people have moved to cities and towns and the urbanization rate has increased from 17.9% to 57.4% by the end of 2016.As a result,the total number of cities