Geological evolution of offshore pollution and its long-term potential impacts on marine ecosystems

Populations and metropolitan centers are accumulated in coastal areas around the world.In view of the fact that they are geographically adjacent to coasts and intense anthropogenic activities,increasing global offshore pollution has been an important worldwide concern over the past several decades and has become a very serious problem that needs to be addressed urgently.Due to offshore pollution,various geological disasters occur in high frequency,including intensified erosion and salinization of coastal soils,frequent geological collapses and landslides and increasing seismic activities.Moreover,offshore pollution shows increasingly serious impacts on the topography and geomorphology of offshore and coastal areas,including coastal degradation,retreating coastlines and estuary delta erosion.Offshore sedimentation processes are strongly influenced by the pH changes of terrestrial discharges,and sedimentary dynamics have become extremely acute and complex due to offshore pollution.The seabed topography and hydrodynamic environment determine the fate and transport of pollutants entering offshore regions.Coastal estuaries,port basins and lagoons that have relatively moderate ocean currents and winds are more likely to accumulate pollutants.Offshore regions and undersea canyons can be used as conduits for transporting pollutants from the continent to the seabed.It is particularly noteworthy that the spatial/temporal distribution of species,community structures,and ecological functions in offshore areas have undergone unprecedented changes in recent decades.Due to increasing offshore pollution,the stable succession and development trend of marine ecosystems has been broken.It is thus important to identify and regulate the quantity,composition and transportation of pollutants in offshore regions and their behavior in marine ecosystems.In particular,crucial actions for stabilizing marine ecosystems,including increasing species and biodiversity,should be implemented to enhance their anti-interference capabilities.This review provides an overview of the current situation of offshore pollution,as well as major trends of pollutant fate and transportation from continent to marine ecosystems,transformation of pollutants in sediments,and their bioaccumulation and diffusion.This study retrospectively reviews the long-term geological evolution of offshore pollution from the perspective of marine geology,and analyses their long-term potential impacts on marine ecosystems.Due to ecological risks associated with pollutants released from offshore sediments,more research on the influence of global offshore pollution based on marine geology is undoubtedly needed.

Carbon nanotube/silicon heterojunctions for photovoltaic applications

Photovoltaic devices have rapidly developed in recent years as they seek to address the ever-increasing energy requirements and environmental issues.Due to their simple structure and easy,low-temperature fabrication,heterojunctions of carbon nanotube(CNT)films and silicon(Si)have been used in solar cells,photodetectors and optoelectronic gas sensors.Significant progress has been made on the development of high-performance CNT/Si heterojunction devices,in particular,CNT/Si solar cells.Here,we give a comprehensive overview of state-of-theart CNT/Si heterojunction devices.The effects of the structure of the CNTs,the interface layer and the silicon structure on the performance of CNT/Si solar cells are analyzed.In addition,potential ways to further improve the performance of such photovoltaic devices are proposed.Finally,the key challenges and developing trends in CNT/Si heterojunction photovoltaic devices are discussed.